


Working on the Edges

by earlgreytea68



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 11:12:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 56,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter where you put Sherlock and John, they click. Including the Winter Olympics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [舞于冰刃](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1550969) by [SN_Blaugrana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SN_Blaugrana/pseuds/SN_Blaugrana)



> This fic is absolute insanity. And also very rough. But I wanted to post it as a Valentine's Day surprise for all of you. And this is especially for azriona. And also for the Sherlock Biennial Sports Challenge (http://sherlocksportschallenge.tumblr.com/), which you should all go off and participate in. 
> 
> Thank you to arctacuda for being very patient with the fact that I can never bother to research anything. (Which is also a disclaimer: If you are a person who knows a lot about skating, probably this is a bad fic, just fyi.)

“What do you mean someone else is using it?” demanded Sherlock Holmes flatly. 

“Someone else has it signed out.” Lestrade shrugged, as if this weren’t a big deal. 

“Well, they can’t use it,” said Sherlock. “We need to use it.”

“That isn’t how it works.”

“Do they know who I am?”

“I have no idea. And I don’t really care.”

“Surely it’s more important that _I_ be on the ice than _them_. Whoever they are.” Sherlock paused and narrowed his eyes. “Is it Moriarty?”

“It’s not Moriarty.”

“It’s probably Moriarty.”

“Why would it be Moriarty?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ it be Moriarty?” Sherlock sulked. “He’s trying to deprive me of the gold.”

“You’ve always seemed to be perfectly capable of doing that all on your own.” 

“Thank you,” Sherlock scowled. 

Lestrade shrugged again. 

Sherlock decided he hated him. He was a terrible coach. Well, no, he was an excellent coach, because Sherlock didn’t need a _coach_ , he just needed someone he could ignore easily, and normally Lestrade was perfect for that purpose. Right now Lestrade was failing him in the only thing Sherlock had left up to Lestrade, which was to get him into the rink in the middle of the night so that he could practice for hours and not deal with reporters and other teams and _people_. 

Who else would want to practice that way? If it wasn’t someone who was trying to thwart him, then it had to be someone…interesting. 

Sherlock never met interesting people. 

***

The Olympic Village was quiet as Sherlock walked through it, heading for the ice rink. Partly that was because it was still early in the week and many of the athletes hadn’t bothered to arrive yet, since the Opening Ceremony was still days away. And partly it was because it was three o’clock in the morning. Those who were partying were still out at the bars, and the parties in the Village hadn’t started in earnest yet, since there wasn’t enough of a population to sustain them. This was Sherlock’s favorite part of the Olympics. The Village was nice before it got too crowded, too full of idiots who treated it like a two-week party. Exhausting and stupid.

Sherlock basically hated everyone at the Olympics, and especially whoever had signed the rink out at _three o’clock in the morning_. 

The back entrance to the rink wasn’t locked, and Sherlock didn’t even bother to be stealthy as he moved through the training rooms and then out next to the ice. The lights were on, bright off the white of the oval, and Sherlock took a deep breath of the cold, sharp air. And he leaned against the boards, trying to determine who it was who was skating on the ice. A hockey player, judging by his skates. Short, compact, graying blond hair that had been combed too carefully and with not enough flair. He was skating in street clothes, making slow circles at the far end of the ice. As Sherlock watched, he shifted to skate backwards, still in careful circles. 

Sherlock leaned and watched and didn’t say a word. And that went on for twenty minutes, until the hockey player started skating back toward the training rooms and finally saw Sherlock, startling on the ice. Sherlock watched him thoughtfully, watched him frown heavily and pick up the pace of his skating, throwing up shaves of ice in his annoyance. 

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, as he got to Sherlock. 

“It’s psychosomatic,” Sherlock said. 

He blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“Your injury. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it? Whether it’s going to keep you from skating. It’s psychosomatic.” 

He paused by the boards, eyes narrowed. His eyes were dark blue, Sherlock noted. “Who _are_ you?” he said.

Sherlock smiled at him. He was actually, unexpectedly, enjoying this. “I normally practice in the middle of the night. If you’re just going to skate in circles, you’re welcome to share the ice with me.” Sherlock pushed off from the boards and began walking away. 

“Practice what?” he called after him. 

“Skating,” Sherlock called back, unhelpfully. 

“But what _kind_?” 

Sherlock smiled and enjoyed not answering. 

***

John was trying not to stress out too much over the injury. He’d been told to rest, told not to worry. He had come out ahead of the rest of the team and had promised he was just going to hang out until they showed up and practice and training started in earnest. But he’d been unable to resist just testing it out, just _seeing_. 

How was he supposed to know that some insane guy was going to show up and give him frankly unhelpful advice? 

John quick-changed out of his skates, but the mysterious stranger was gone by the time he got outside. When John got back to his room, he was far too keyed up from the skate—which had seemed cautiously promising—and from the mysterious stranger who had scared the hell out of him when he’d spotted him. So when he got back to his room, he spent his time on the Internet, Googling “British skater Olympics” and scrolling through the Images results. He didn’t have to scroll very long. Sherlock Holmes. Figure skater. John sat and read basically his entire biography, every news article he could find. It was his fourth Olympics. He’d been very young at his first and had surprised everyone by basically crashing into a bronze. He’d been in his prime and heavily favored for both his second and third Olympics and had won silver in both, after an explosive dramatic meltdown in the first and then a listless apparent lack of interest in the second. He was considered over the hill now, in the brutal way of figure skating, and, although he’d been the top qualifier from Great Britain, he hadn’t been on the podium on an international stage in the past two years. He was considered a very long shot, skirting the edges of possibility but mentioned far below the younger skaters who had come up in the intervening years. 

When John was finished reading about him, the day was already more than half over. 

***

John didn’t intend to go to the rink again. But he was wide awake at 2:30 in the morning, and he thought this was foolish, and he wasn’t doing anything better. So he grabbed his skates and went to the rink. 

Music was blasting its way through the rink, something violent and dark, all angry string instruments. John leaned up against the boards and watched Sherlock Holmes, who was working his way around the rink, dressed all in black. While John watched, he launched himself into one jump and then another, and to John, who didn’t tend to do twirling jumps on the ice, it all looked very impressive. 

Sherlock stopped before the music ended, skating over to where John was watching. He was breathing hard, but it didn’t stop him from snapping, “Well, don’t just stand there.” 

“You didn’t need to stop on my account,” said John. 

“I didn’t stop on your account,” said Sherlock, sharply. 

“Okay,” John said, agreeably, because clearly Sherlock wasn’t pleased about something but he doubted it was him. 

“Well, go on,” Sherlock said, as his furious music finally came to an end and silence fell over the rink. 

"With?" 

“ _Skating_ ,” said Sherlock, scathingly. “Didn’t you come here to skate?”

“Tell me something,” John said, casually, as he headed out onto the ice. 

Sherlock looked at him expectantly. 

John grinned at him. “Are you always so pleasant?” And he skated away, down to the other end of the ice. 

After a moment, Sherlock’s music started up again. John tried to stay out of his way, although Sherlock didn’t seem to be skating the whole routine, just practicing one specific part of it over and over. The same jump, which he kept landing beautifully to John’s eyes, although he kept practicing it, with different entry and exit moves. John wasn’t sure why he needed to have the terrible music on for the practicing, really. 

John waited through it several times before saying, “Is this the music you skate to?” He had to practically shout it across the ice. 

Sherlock frowned at him briefly. “It’s Wagner, you know.” 

“Okay,” said John. 

Sherlock skated away, then skated back. “He’s _German_ ,” he said. 

“I’ve heard of him,” John assured him. 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, as if this was unexpected, and then skated backwards, away from him. He said, “Your leg’s better tonight.”

It was. The night before, it had been practically shaking from just the little bit of a workout he’d been giving it. But tonight it was much improved. 

“Psychosomatic,” Sherlock said. “I’ve been distracting you.” 

“Are you going to skate your free skate during the hockey game?” joked John, to cover the fact that he didn’t want to talk about his psychosomatic injury. 

“This is my short program I’m working on,” said Sherlock. 

“Ah,” said John, because he honestly didn’t know what that meant. So he told him that. “I don’t know much about figure skating.”

“Hmm,” said Sherlock. 

“I’m sure you don’t know much about hockey.”

“I know about hockey.”

“Did you used to play?”

“No. I read about it last night.”

“Last night? You read about hockey last night?”

“When I looked you up.”

“You looked me up.”

“Of course I did. Don’t pretend you didn’t look me up.”

“Yeah, but you were easy. I just had to Google ‘British skater Olympics’ and look at the images until I found you. How did you find me?”

“I Googled ‘American hockey player Olympics injured.’”

_Injured_. Even though he was literally trying to fix his injury at that very moment, John still didn’t think of himself as being injured. “Right,” he said, because now he felt like an idiot. 

“You’re here just hoping to see a minute of playing time.” 

John bristled. “It’s the _Olympics_ ,” he said. “And we didn’t all pick sports where we’re the star all the time.”

“Poor planning on your part,” remarked Sherlock. He was still skating backwards lazily. John was skating forwards, not pursuing him, but keeping them close enough for the conversation. 

John decided to change the subject. “So what are you working on here?”

Sherlock didn’t answer. 

Ah, so that’s how it was, thought John. He was totally okay with talking about John’s sob story, but not willing to share his championship secrets. “Never mind,” John said, trying not to sound annoyed, because he shouldn’t be annoyed. He’d known this guy for all of twenty minutes, basically, there was no reason he should expect them to be sharing confidences like best friends. 

But Sherlock said, “I’m not happy with this routine.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like anything about it.”

Sherlock sounded frustrated and annoyed. John said, “You like the music.” 

“I do, yes.” Sherlock paused and looked at John closely. “Do you?”

“It’s fine.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”

“Sherlock, what does it matter?”

“You don’t like it,” said Sherlock. “Tell me why not.”

John hesitated, then ventured, “It’s a little…angry, isn’t it?”

“Angry? You think it’s angry?”

“It sounds angry, and you look angry when you’re skating it.” 

“Oh, and now I suppose you feel qualified to judge the _mood_ of my skating?”

John didn’t much like that the conversation had devolved so quickly. He wanted to go back to the easier conversation. “Let’s change the subject.” 

“I suppose you’d rather I skate to Tchaikovsky. That’s Lestrade’s opinion.” 

“Your coach?” John guessed. 

Sherlock nodded briefly. 

John wanted to ask why Sherlock’s coach never seemed to attend any of his practices, but he decided he didn’t want to embark on another touchy subject, so instead he said, “Can I see the whole routine?” 

Sherlock blinked at him. “You want to see the whole thing?”

“Yeah. I’ve only ever gotten to see one jump, basically. I mean, if it’s not going to throw off your practice schedule or anything…”

“No, it’s fine,” said Sherlock, and skated over to the side of the rink where he was controlling the music, and John skated off to get out of his way. He was incredibly excited about this for some reason, thrumming with anticipation. 

Sherlock skated to the middle of the rink, and the music started, the violins unexpectedly gentle at the beginning, not yet built up to the angry crescendo. Sherlock skated gently at the beginning, too, matching the music. John would not have supposed he’d be so incredibly light on the ice. John didn’t think _anyone_ could look as light on the ice as Sherlock did. And yet he leapt into spins and jumps with a remarkable power. It was an artful balance of nimbleness and determination, and John watched, transfixed, until the music reached its violent violins. Sherlock finished his routine with some sort of slashingly violent spin, which made John feel dizzy and ended with a dramatic shower of ice and Sherlock’s toepick stopping his momentum just as suddenly as the music did. 

After a moment of silence, John started clapping. Sherlock skated over, pushing his hands through his mop of dark hair, which was damp with sweat. John could see why. He wouldn’t have been able to do any of that stuff, despite spending most of his life on skates. 

“That was fantastic,” John said. 

Sherlock looked genuinely curious. “Did you think so?”

“Of course,” said John, not knowing how to react to Sherlock’s reaction. “It was extraordinary.”

Sherlock looked briefly pleased. Then he said, stepping off the ice, “Actually, it was rubbish.”

“Rubbish?” John repeated, shocked. “I couldn’t do any of that.”

“Of course you could. You just learned to skate a different way. It’s all a matter of working with your edges. And you’d not get anywhere without a toepick.” 

“Well, I’d like to see you teach me any of _that_ ,” said John. 

“Maybe after the competition,” said Sherlock, and John blinked at him in surprise, but Sherlock was already moving away from him, back towards the changing rooms. 

John followed him after a moment. Sherlock was removing his skates, leaning over as he unlaced them. Sherlock was tall, and his legs were long, and for a second John just watched him. His fingers were long, too, and they tugged at the laces elegantly, and John felt like he could have just watched Sherlock’s fingers for ages. And then John startled himself out of that thought, because what the _hell_? He felt as if it was possible Sherlock had cast a spell over him during the course of his routine, and now John felt slightly drunk on him, a bit bewitched. 

“Are you done?” Sherlock asked, as he pulled his skates off. He sent John a querying glance from under his tumbled curls. He had great hair, really, thought John. Great eyes, too. John stared at him, mouth dry. “John,” Sherlock said, looking almost amused. 

“Yeah,” John said, almost physically shaking himself. “Yeah, I’m done.”

“Then you need to take your skates off, you can’t walk back with them on.” Sherlock stood, swinging his skates over his shoulders. 

“Right,” John said, and sat. He was conscious of how short and stubby every bit of him felt next to Sherlock’s lithe leanness. It was almost annoying. Except that it made sense that Sherlock had ended up spinning around on the ice to violins like some beautiful exotic bird while John muscled his way through fights and blood and bruises. 

Sherlock leaned against the wall, watching him, which only made John fumble more over his laces. 

“You don’t have to wait,” John said, sounding a bit short, but he was feeling flustered. He could hear Sherlock _breathing_ over there, he could _physically_ feel his gaze. 

There was a moment of silence. “Oh,” said Sherlock. “Right. Sorry. I thought—”

And now he’d been rude to him. Damn it. “No,” said John. “I just meant you didn’t have to wait if you’d rather—”

“I just thought we could walk back together. But you’re right. I don’t even know where you’re—”

Somehow the conversation, as awkward as it was, had given John the ability to stop being frozen and to finish switching out of his skates. “Well, now I’m ready,” he said, standing up, and decided to try to pretend he was breathless from skating slowly in circles twenty minutes ago and not because of whatever was going on in the changing room. 

“Right,” said Sherlock, after a second, and straightened from the wall, and they walked out together. 

John tested the door to make sure it locked behind them. 

Sherlock said, “It doesn’t matter. I could pick that lock in a heartbeat.” 

John snorted.

“I could,” Sherlock said, as they began walking. 

“Were you a burglar before you became a figure skater?”

“No, I’m a detective on the side. Kind of a hobby.”

“Really?” John looked at him in surprise. 

“Is that strange?” Sherlock sounded defensive. 

“No, I think it’s neat. What do you detect? Is that the right term?”

“I help the police sometimes. When they’re out of their depth.”

“The police? Really? How often does that happen?”

“Oh, they’re always out of their depth,” said Sherlock, casually. 

“So. Hang on. Do you even have that rink signed out, or did you just break in tonight?”

Sherlock chuckled. “Relax. We haven’t broken any laws.”

“Not exactly reassuring,” remarked John, and Sherlock chuckled again. Sherlock’s laugh was warm. Warmer than the rest of him, really. It provoked a pleasant sort of buzz in John, unexpected but delightful, like really good whiskey settling in his stomach. John wanted to make him laugh again but couldn’t think of anything witty to say. So instead he said, “Is that why you practice in the middle of the night? So you can keep your lock-picking skills up to par?”

Sherlock laughed again, and John flushed with pleasure, because he hadn’t thought he’d said anything clever enough to deserve that. “No,” answered Sherlock. “Why do _you_ practice in the middle of the night?” 

“Because I’m not supposed to be practicing at all,” John said. “I’m supposed to be ‘resting.’” He used extravagant air quotes around the word. 

“You’re terrible at resting. I’ve known you a day and I know that. Is your coach an idiot?”

“No, my coach is more worried about the players who can actually play and might actually contribute to the team. And that sounded bitter. Sorry. I’m not bitter. I’m just happy to be here.” 

“Please, the reason for doing this in the middle of the night is that it means you don’t have to talk in respectable sound bites. Of course you’re angry to have finally got here and be injured. Even if the lingering injury _is_ psychosomatic.”

“Well, that makes it worse, doesn’t it?” said John. “There’s nothing wrong with me at all, I just can’t _skate_ anymore.”

“Not so. You’ve been skating perfectly well the past two nights. And if your injury weren’t psychosomatic, I wouldn’t be able to help with it.”

John turned over in his head that Sherlock had decided that he was going to help him with his injury. After knowing him a day. When he was trying to focus on a gold medal that all accounts said was going to be hard on him. John didn’t even know what to say to that. So he said nothing. He tried to keep his breathing even, as if he hadn’t just been blown away by that simple statement. 

Sherlock said, “I don’t like people watching me.”

John could see that. It was annoying to have all those eyes on you all the time, criticizing every single movement. “And no one’s caught on yet?”

“Well, I practice during the day, too, of course.”

“When do you _sleep_?” asked John. 

“Sleep is boring,” said Sherlock. 

“Okay,” said John, unsure how else to respond to that. And then, “This is my stop,” as they drew up outside of his house in the Olympic Village, which in a couple of days would be overrun with hockey players but right now was his and his alone. John suddenly found himself swallowing thickly, like a lunatic, like he should maybe ask Sherlock in for coffee. 

Sherlock didn’t even pause. He just said, “See you tomorrow night,” and walked off into the night, black outfit blending quickly. 

***

The next night Sherlock was not working on his angry violins routine. He was working on something else that also had violins but was very, very pretty. And he was working on spins. Spins, spins, spins, spins. John, skating in his lazy circles, watched him and tried not to find it all very hot. He was clearly losing his mind. He had slept most of the day in order to make up for his two consecutive late nights and hadn’t even pretended that he wasn’t going to meet Sherlock that night. Of course he was. If he was honest, he’d been nervous with excitement all evening over meeting Sherlock again; the clock had crawled its way past midnight. 

John was glad there was currently no one sharing the hockey house with him; he had no idea how he would have explained his starry-eyed schoolgirl crush on a random British figure skater he’d happened to run into. 

Sherlock spun and spun and spun. Eventually John stopped the pretense of skating and just leaned against the boards and watched him. He was all in black again. Of course he was. Sometimes he remembered to put the music back on, but most of the time he forgot all about it, concentrating on the spins in silence, the only sound his breathing—very regular, very rhythmic, and John wondered if he timed his spins by it—and the silver slicing of his skates on the ice. 

Finally Sherlock seemed to have enough of the spinning. He skated over to where he’d left a water bottle and then over to John with it in his hand, leaning up against the boards with it. 

“What routine is that?” John asked. 

“Free skate,” Sherlock said, and drank from the water bottle. 

“What’s the music? It sounded familiar.”

Sherlock paused. “Swan Lake,” he said. 

John thought. “It’s Tchaikovsky, isn’t it?” 

Sherlock looked disgruntled, like he hadn’t expected John to know that. “Yes.”

“You did listen to your coach.” John tried not to grin at him; he didn’t think he succeeded. 

“For this program, yes. But this is a good program. The choreography’s good. I couldn’t really sulk about that one. He wanted me to do a bloody Nutcracker thing for the short. Double Tchaikovsky. And the _Nutcracker_ to boot. There was no sodding way.” 

“At least it’s not Andrew Lloyd Webber,” said John, amused. 

Sherlock looked at him, aghast, and John laughed. 

***

They walked back together, and Sherlock said, “Who will you have to room with?” 

“The rest of the hockey team. They’ll take over the whole house.”

“When will they get here?”

“In a couple of days. The day before the Opening Ceremony.”

Sherlock made a face. “It’s all about to get miserable here.” 

John smiled. “The Olympic spirit in action.”

“You’ll see,” said Sherlock, sourly. “Wait until the snowboarders start roving about. You can tell where they are from the cloud of marijuana smoke coming at you.” 

John laughed. “I bet their house must be fun. Do you room with the other skaters?”

“Yes. It’s tedious.”

In two days of acquaintance, John was already aware that Sherlock found most things tedious, so he didn’t bother to pursue that further. “So are you happy with your spins now?” he asked instead. 

“I was working on my algorithms.”

“Algorithms?”

“For the rhythm of the spins.”

“Figure skating is a lot of math, huh?”

“If you do it properly,” said Sherlock. 

John wanted to ask so many questions. He wanted to know everything. How did Sherlock get into figure skating? What sort of person did amateur police-work as a hobby? What had happened in his previous two Olympics, and how nervous was he about these Olympics as a consequence? What was his favorite type of music? Why did he hate Tchaikovsky so much? What was his favorite color? What did he look like in the morning? How did he kiss? What did his hair feel like? What did he taste like? Did he drink coffee or tea? Was he left-handed or right? What was his favorite book? John’s mind was whirling with all the things he wanted to know about Sherlock Holmes, the list spinning out endlessly. 

They had reached the hockey house now, and Sherlock actually paused this time. He wasn’t looking at John. He was looking everywhere but at John. John stared at him, his heart pounding wildly, and had no idea what to do. It was a terribly awkward moment and John felt paralyzed and then Sherlock cleared his throat and looked at him from underneath his hair and said, “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” said John, breathlessly, and cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah.”

Sherlock smiled a little bit, and there was another pause, and John tried desperately to figure out if Sherlock had looked down at his mouth or if he’d just imagined that, and then Sherlock took a very deliberate step back and walked away without another word. 

And John couldn’t figure out if his mistake had been giving away how much he’d been lusting after Sherlock or not reaching out and grabbing him and pulling him in. 

***

“You’re not using again, are you?” Lestrade asked it bluntly, as they were walking back from the rink. 

Sherlock had been thinking that it was already becoming unbearable to make the walk back from the rink, that there was too much press and too many people around. Lestrade’s question startled him into a “What?” Which was something he almost never said. 

“If you are using, I will call your brother and I will have you put back in rehab, do you hear me?” 

“Is that supposed to encourage me to tell you the truth?” asked Sherlock, wryly. 

“It had better,” threatened Lestrade, darkly. 

“I’m not using,” Sherlock said, calmly. “Stop being so dramatic.”

Lestrade frowned and fell silent. 

Sherlock sighed. “You’ve got questions.”

“You’re so calm. I thought you were going to be a basket case.”

“Thank you, Lestrade, for that vote of confidence.” 

“This isn’t like you. You’re usually right on the edge of a nervous breakdown at any given moment. So tell me what’s different this time.”

“It’s my last one, Lestrade,” Sherlock said, tightly. “I’m not going to ruin it the way I ruined the last two.”

“Suddenly, fifteen years into your skating career, you’re turning over a new leaf?” 

“All you do is tell me to find a way to stay calm. Now I decide to stay calm and you decide to be annoyed about it. Really, Lestrade, you’re impossible to please,” said Sherlock, affecting boredom. 

“So you’re really not going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“What it is that you’re doing differently this time.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Lestrade.” 

Lestrade didn’t believe him. He made a skeptical sound and said, “Well, whatever it is, keep doing it, yeah? As long as it’s not drugs. Because I could get used to this version of you.” 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and disappeared into the British skating house and then into his room, where he closed the door and sprawled on the bed and stared at the ceiling and thought of John Watson. Thought of how the Opening Ceremony was the day after tomorrow. Which meant the rest of John’s hockey team would be arriving tomorrow. Which meant that tonight would be the last night of practice together. 

Three straight nights of having company for his late-night practice, and Sherlock had grown very used to it. Two nights ago, there had been that odd, tense moment outside of the hockey house, as if John might actually want to kiss him, and then Sherlock had panicked and thought he’d been reading that wrong, which was silly, because he usually read people effortlessly. But he had little experience with _that_ sort of reading of people, people didn’t usually look at him like that after they’d had a conversation with him, and John had had several conversations with him and was still looking at him like _that_. It made no sense. 

And Sherlock had already realized that he had grown strangely dependent on having John in the rink. John’s presence, silent and watchful, was steadying in a way Sherlock couldn’t explain. He needed to keep it around. Lestrade clearly agreed. 

So, last night, Sherlock had been careful not to pause by the hockey house, had been careful to just breezily call back that he would see John again. He hadn’t wanted to disturb anything, hadn’t wanted to frighten John away from coming back tonight. 

Tonight. Their last night. Which meant Sherlock was facing once again the yawning blackness of solitariness at the rink, coupled with more people arriving, with _Moriarty_ arriving, as he hadn’t yet because he was arrogant. Because that was the way you felt when you were young and in the prime of your career and everyone told you the gold was yours, that you could sleep-skate your way to it. Sherlock knew that very well indeed. 

Sherlock turned his thoughts away from Moriarty, which was not a good direction for them, turned them carefully back to John Watson. Closed his eyes and let himself drift into John Watson, the way he smiled at Sherlock, asked him curious questions and listened when he answered, skated with an absent grace that Sherlock knew he didn’t realize he possessed. John Watson didn’t think he was amazing and remarkable, Sherlock had seen that immediately, and John Watson was absolutely wrong about that. Sherlock had never met anyone half as amazing and remarkable, and Sherlock had met far too many people over the course of a lifetime, he knew how rare a person like John Watson was. 

John Watson, thought Sherlock. One more late-night practice before the entire world crashed in on them. Which meant he had nothing to lose tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock said, “You should do something other than skate in circles.” 

John knew he should. John had been thinking of it, but he was terrified of trying it. “I’m perfecting skating in circles,” he said, using a joke to deflect. “Anyway, you’ve been working on that same angry jump for two nights now.” 

“I’m trying to perfect the ‘angry jump,’ as you so eloquently call it.” 

“Can we help it if we’re both perfectionists?”

“It’s a quad Salchow.”

“Gezundheit,” said John. 

“If I do something other than the angry jump, will you do something other than skating in circles?”

John hesitated, suspicious. “Define the ‘something other.’”

“I’ll skate the whole program through for you to watch. And then we’ll have a race.” 

John lifted his eyebrows. “A race?”

“A race. One edge of the rink to the other.”

“We’re not speed skaters, you know.”

“It wouldn’t be skating in circles,” Sherlock pointed out. 

John shook his head. “I don’t need to race. And we don’t know how to race. I think it would be a terrible idea.”

“What are you talking about? Racing is racing. What is there to _know_?”

“How not to tumble to the ice and slice our arteries open.”

“You think I don’t know how to take a fall without slicing our arteries open? Although you raise a good point, and I’ve always thought speed skates especially would make good murder weapons.”

“I’ll keep that in mind should I ever need to murder anyone at the Olympics.”

“What if I skate a program you’ve never seen before?”

That gave John pause. He’d seen both of Sherlock’s programs over the past few days, and he was fairly sure (from the embarrassing amount of research he’d been doing into figure skating) that Sherlock only needed to skate two at the Olympics. “What program?” he asked. 

Sherlock shrugged, forcibly casual. “A program I don’t skate in competition.”

“You don’t skate it in competition?” John wanted to pursue that. He wanted to ask why. But he wanted more to see it. He wanted to see this secret program _desperately_. And he knew that’s why Sherlock had suggested it, damn him. 

“You get to see it,” Sherlock said, sternly, “but then we have to have a race.”

John swallowed the butterflies in his stomach and nodded before he could think himself out of it. And then he skated over to the side and sat and tried not to bounce in anticipation. Sherlock skated over to the other side and fiddled with his music, and then skated back to the middle of the rink, getting into position, waiting. 

John found himself leaning forward, holding his breath, and then the music started. It was violin again, but just a single violin this time, plaintive and sweet. Sherlock skated to match it, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. The build to the climax of the program was gradual and gorgeous, the tempo increasing and Sherlock’s skating quickening to match it. Sherlock glided through spins, burst into jumps, and the music flourished around him, and John felt wrapped up and drawn forward. By the time the program finished, the last impossibly pure note echoing through the rink and Sherlock drifting into stillness, John felt as if he’d lived his entire life in the course of the program, felt every emotion worth having. It was the most ridiculous thing but he had tears in his eyes. 

John gasped suddenly, and realized that he must have been holding his breath. Sherlock skated over to him and grabbed at the bottle of water on the boards near him. 

John said, “That was _amazing_.”

Sherlock glanced at him as he drank. “Do you know you say that out loud?”

“Yes, I know. That’s the _point_. Sherlock, that was _beautiful_. Why don’t you skate that in competition?” 

“It’s a difficult program,” said Sherlock. “I’ve never once skated it cleanly.”

John had no idea what he was talking about. “That was _flawless_.”

“You’re not a figure skating judge,” said Sherlock. “And you’re trying to distract me.”

“From what?”

“Our race. Come on. Back on the ice.”

_The race_. John had honestly forgotten, caught up in the sheer overload of Sherlock’s skate. He went reluctantly, aware he’d made a deal and regretting that deal now. No, he corrected himself. Not really. Because seeing Sherlock skate _that_ was surely worth the humiliation he was going to have when his leg gave way underneath him. 

“If you need a second to catch your breath…” began John. 

Sherlock leaned close to him, so close that for an insane moment John thought he was going to kiss him, and then Sherlock said, “John Watson. Do you think that I can’t beat you in a race even without catching my breath?” And then he took off. 

John took off after him without thinking, overtaking him quickly. Sherlock skated, even in a race, cleanly, almost fussily. John kicked up ice and made sure he showered Sherlock with some liberally as he went by, although that only spurred Sherlock to increase his pace, and John slammed against the boards on the other side of the rink in front, but not as in front as he’d thought he was going to be when he had passed Sherlock so easily. 

“Did you let me win?” he demanded, panting for breath. 

“Of course I didn’t let you win,” said Sherlock, also panting for breath, but he was grinning from ear-to-ear and looking smug. “And how’s your leg?” 

John blinked, and realized he’d forgotten. Sherlock had leaned close enough to scramble his thoughts and then delivered a challenge and he, John Watson, had forgotten that his leg had been refusing to do exactly what it had just done. John stared at Sherlock, slack-jawed. 

“You see?” said Sherlock. “I didn’t let you win. _I_ won.” 

“How do you figure that?” asked John, still feeling turned upside-down. 

“I knew you could do it, and I proved that you could, even though you foolishly didn’t believe me. And that’ll teach you to think Sherlock Holmes is ever wrong.”

Sherlock looked so incredibly pleased with himself that John wanted to shake him. “You’re an arrogant prick,” John told him. 

Sherlock almost preened at that, looking delighted. “Am I?”

And that was when John kissed him. It was another thing he did, like racing Sherlock, which he did without thinking. One minute he was thinking that Sherlock was one of the most annoying people he’d ever met, and then the next he’d backed him against the board and had his tongue halfway down his throat. 

It probably wouldn’t have gotten that far if Sherlock hadn’t been kissing him back desperately. Everything about their angle against the boards and the scrambling of their skates for purchase against the ice to try to get the right sort of friction was _wrong_ , but none of that mattered because kissing Sherlock felt _right_. Because Sherlock kissed him back as if it was the rightest thing that could ever have happened in the world, and John fell into Sherlock, into the kiss, letting everything else fall completely away. There was nothing but this moment, Sherlock flush against him and squirming closer, the slide of Sherlock’s tongue against his. 

Eventually Sherlock pulled back with a gasp, but it wasn’t a rejection. Sherlock’s hands moved from John’s shoulders to his hair, and he tipped his neck and nudged John’s face toward it. John accepted the invitation, bit underneath Sherlock’s jaw, barely resisted the urge to suck a mark onto Sherlock’s skin. 

Sherlock said, “John,” in a tone of voice that should definitely have been illegal. “John, ask me to go back with you to the hockey house.”

John shuddered with anticipation and pressed Sherlock harder against the boards, and Sherlock made the most delicious sound in his throat at that, and John said, “Come back with me to the hockey house.”

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “Right now.” 

***

John thought it was going to take them ages to get to the hockey house. He thought they would spend forever backing each other up into corners and against various walls for another taste. It felt that electric. But Sherlock seemed abruptly business-like about the whole thing, changing out of his skates with barely a look in John’s direction. 

Desire thrummed through John, painfully evident to him in the closeness of his jeans, but also a vague sort of offended confusion. He wanted to fall on top of Sherlock and tear his clothing off of him and devour every inch of his skin, and Sherlock’s hands weren’t even trembling as he pulled at his laces. 

John clenched his hands into fists and walked beside Sherlock towards the Olympic Village, standing aloof with tension. He took deep breaths and tried to clear the haze of lust out of his head. 

Sherlock said, hesitantly, eventually, “This is all right, isn’t it?”

Walking side-by-side not touching? No, not by a long shot. “What?” John asked, because he didn’t think that was what Sherlock had meant by _this_. 

“If I… If we… You know.” Sherlock made a vague motion with his hand. John followed it, focused on Sherlock’s fingers, and forced himself to focus on what Sherlock was saying instead. “You’re quiet. You’re not upset, are you?”

“I’m trying to make it all the way to the hockey house before I get you naked,” said John, honestly. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock, strangled. “Good. I mean, good that… You could get me naked out here, I wouldn’t mind.”

John actually stumbled. “Jesus Christ, don’t say things like that when I’m trying to _walk_.” 

“Do be careful,” Sherlock said, sounding genuinely anxious, “I wouldn’t want you to actually injure your leg.” 

John almost laughed. And then he did laugh. He laughed until he had to stop walking because he was laughing too hard and had to catch his breath. 

Sherlock paused in front of him and looked at him warily. “John?” he said, uncertainly. 

John shook his head, unable to articulate it. Actually, he _could_ articulate it— _you’re delightful_ , he wanted to say—but that would be insane. A crazy thing to say in the middle of the night in the middle of the Olympic Village to a British figure skater he’d known four days. So John kissed him instead. It wasn’t quite as urgent as the kisses against the boards, but it was still deep and wet and filthy, and Sherlock groaned and curled his fingers into the collar of John’s jacket and walked backwards, pulling him along so their kiss wouldn’t break contact. He only took a few steps before he gave up on that idea in favor of kissing John back just a bit harder, and John reached out and grabbed him and pulled him up against him, a move much easier to accomplish when they weren’t both on ice skates, it turned out. 

“John,” Sherlock mumbled against his mouth. “Either get me naked right now or stop kissing me and get me to the hockey house.” 

John pulled back with an effort that seemed equal to him to the first time he’d skated after the injury. He blinked dazedly at their surroundings and felt utterly lost. 

“I have no idea where the hell the hockey house is,” he admitted. 

“You’re hopeless,” Sherlock said. 

“Fine, you find it,” said John, and made an expansive motion with his hands. 

“I don’t give a damn about finding the bloody hockey house,” Sherlock said, and turned and walked over to the nearest building and immediately picked the lock open. 

John blinked in astonishment as Sherlock opened the door. “Wait,” he hissed, and grabbed Sherlock’s arm. “We’re not doing this in someone else’s house.”

“They’re not here,” Sherlock said, impatiently. 

“What if they come back?” 

“This is your first time at the Olympics. You don’t realize: They’ll probably join in.”

“At the risk of sounding unbelievably boring right now, I don’t want some random person to come join in.” John paused. “Do you?”

“No,” Sherlock snapped, and slammed the door shut in annoyance and looked around them. “It’s this way,” he said, stalking away. 

He looked confident, so John followed him. Although John would have followed him anywhere, he suspected. And, actually, with Sherlock not directly in his personal space, it was easier for John to get his bearings, and they _were_ going the right way. 

Eventually Sherlock stopped in front of the hockey house and gestured to it as if he thought John might not recognize it. 

John stood with his hands in his pockets and said, “Pick the lock.” 

Sherlock lifted his eyebrows but stepped forward, pulling out some kind of kit John hadn’t noticed in his lust-addled state at the first house. 

“Do you just always have a lock-picking kit on you?” he asked, in surprised. 

“Yes,” answered Sherlock, simply, and swung the door open and then straightened and looked at John expectantly. 

John said, hoarsely, “Do you have any idea how hot that is?”

Sherlock’s lips curled into a smirk. “Yes,” he said again. 

The thing about Sherlock’s smirk was that all John wanted was to taste it. So he did. They stumbled through the door together and one of them closed it, and the only reason John knew it was closed was because he backed Sherlock up against it. The kiss was a frantic mess and the best kiss of John’s life. Sherlock pulled at his hair and made delicious noises and John decided he could kiss Sherlock Holmes for the next hour, at least. He _wanted_ to. John wanted to make this night last the rest of his lifetime. 

He slowed the kiss, pulled away a whisper, panted in tandem with Sherlock. He was trying to think of something to say, wondering if there was anything he even wanted to say, when Sherlock suddenly ruffled John’s hair. It was a curiously adorable gesture, untainted by lust, and John blinked in surprise. 

“What was that for?”

“You don’t fool me,” Sherlock replied. 

John lifted his eyebrows, unsure what that meant. 

“You, with your perfectly combed hair and your ridiculously boring jumpers.” Sherlock tugged on his sweater. 

“My jumpers?” John echoed. 

“Your _sweaters_ ,” said Sherlock. “You wear the world’s most boring sweaters.”

“I wear nice sweaters,” John protested. And then, “Hang on, I think we’re getting distracted here.”

“I’m just saying: You don’t fool me.” Sherlock twisted his hand in John’s sweater and used it to pull him closer, so close that John’s eyes practically crossed trying to keep him in focus. “You dress like a grandfather,” Sherlock practically purred over John’s lips, and John’s eyes fluttered closed because keeping them open when Sherlock’s voice sounded like that was impossible, “but you play a bloody, violent sport and you play it well. So wear your terrible jumpers and comb your hair down but you don’t fool me for a second. I know exactly who you are, and underneath it all you are dying for a little excitement, a little bit of danger, something to make you feel a little bit alive. Well, I skate in the middle of the night and solve crimes on the side and I am all yours. So how do you want me, John Watson?”

Sherlock kissed him, a brief brush of lips that had John leaning into him, seeking more. 

More, which Sherlock refused to give, dodging him, until John reached up to hold his head still with a little growl. “I want to absolutely destroy you,” he said, “until you can’t remember anyone or anything but me.”

Sherlock’s extraordinary eyes gleamed at him. “Excellent. Do it.” 

***

John had no idea how, but eventually they made it to his bed and made it out of their clothing. Sherlock’s body was both slender and muscular and John licked his way over it. Sherlock trembled and mumbled and pulled John closer and arched against him. Sherlock was impossibly beautiful, and John had never before even come close to being with such an ethereal creature, never mind one that was responding to him so exquisitely. 

He tortured him as long as he could, until Sherlock’s moans turned to sobs, until Sherlock finally reached for him and pulled him up into an uncoordinated kiss, begging, “Please could you just…could you just…”

John’s heart tripped and he hoped he wasn’t about to die of a heart attack. “Tell me what you want,” John whispered to him, because he wanted to make sure he got it right. 

But Sherlock didn’t tell him. Sherlock flipped him and suddenly swallowed him whole, with no warning, and John swore and clambered for purchase because the pleasure made him feel dizzy, like the bed was tipping over. 

Sherlock abandoned the attention as quickly as he’d engaged in it, licking a wet stripe up John’s chest. 

“Jesus Christ,” John panted, putting his hands clumsily in Sherlock’s tangled hair. “Give me a little _warning_.”

“No warning,” Sherlock murmured, and nipped at his chin. “No warning. Just like you didn’t give me any warning.”

“I didn’t give you any warning?”

“No.” Sherlock sucked on his earlobe, then blew on it. “You just stole my practice time at the rink one day. No warning at all.” 

Sherlock was moving slowly, positioning their bodies, a slip of friction that made John bite his lip and strive to keep the thread of the conversation. “I didn’t know I was doing it.”

Sherlock lifted his head so he could look down at John, stroked luxuriously against John’s body, and John groaned at him. Sherlock said, “I’m so glad you did.” 

“So’m I,” managed John, and wriggled to try to get them lined back up into optimal position. 

“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock said. 

John blinked, momentarily distracted. “Your idea of dirty talk’s not really doing it for me,” he informed Sherlock. 

“There is nothing whatsoever wrong with your leg, as you’ve proved several times tonight.” 

“You’re getting way off-topic here.” 

“Do you have any lube?”

“And abruptly back on topic,” said John, head cartwheeling from the subject change. 

Sherlock’s hand was already reaching for the nightstand drawer, fumbling around in it. “Look at you,” he said, sounding amused. “Already unpacked and set up for an assignation.” 

John felt himself blush, which was absolutely ridiculous. “That’s not true.”

“If you weren’t expecting an assignation, why else would you have—Oh.” He ducked his head down next to John’s ear at the same instant he closed his hand around both of them and stroked. Impossibly enormous hands, Sherlock had, and John would have been lying if he’d said that he hadn’t imagined just exactly those hands with just exactly that lube. “Did you think of me?” Sherlock whispered in his ear, and if John were more coherent he would have responded to that with something other than a bitten-off groan. “Am I living up to expectations, John?” Sherlock spoke around ragged gasps of breath. 

“Oh my God, yes,” he said. “Oh, God, just like that.” He panted and squeezed his eyes shut and felt so close, so close, that skating on the edge of it was that slice between pain and pleasure. “Are you close?” he bit out, to Sherlock, because it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t meant to be such a spectator. 

Sherlock startled him by replying with a muffled shout into his shoulder, which sent John rocketing into an answering climax that wiped his brain into the white glare of fresh ice. He felt like it took him forever to ride out the aftershocks of it, and he tried to remember if he’d ever had such a spectacular orgasm before. 

“I fucking love the Olympics,” he managed to say, as he came back to himself. 

Sherlock, sprawled over him, face buried against his neck, hand reaching for the tissues by the bed, laughed. John could feel the brush of his lips as they moved, the warmth of his breath as he exhaled. “I don’t,” he said. “Stupid single bed.” 

It was tight on the bed, but the idea of Sherlock dislodging himself, of rolling off of the bed and going somewhere else, somewhere where every inch of their bodies wasn’t in contact, struck him like a physical blow. He held Sherlock tighter, which made Sherlock's mission with the tissues harder, threading his hands through his hair, and said, “You’re fine where you are.”

“I’m not,” said Sherlock. “Your shoulder’s bearing most of the weight and your shoulder injury, whilst mostly recovered, isn’t psychosomatic.” 

That was true, and the fact that it was true annoyed John. “Please tell me you didn’t just have sex with me as physical therapy.”

“Is that what your physical therapy sessions are like? I must have a word with Lestrade, my physical therapist never does anything like _that_.”

“You know what I mean.”

Sherlock lifted his head and looked down at John. It was lighter in the room than it had been and John wondered suddenly what time it was, how close to daylight they were. Sherlock said, “I don’t…” And trailed off. The expression on his face was odd, and John couldn’t figure out how to read it. He wasn’t sure it was an expression you wanted on the face of a new and recent lover. 

“You okay?” he asked, slowly, terrified of the answer. 

“I just wanted you,” Sherlock said, simply. “John Watson. I just wanted _you_.”

John’s breath caught and stuttered and it was a moment before he could speak. He covered the moment by brushing Sherlock’s disastrous curls off his forehead. And then finally he said, “Thank you.” And then, in horror, “Oh, God, I sound like an idiot.” 

“No, you don’t,” said Sherlock. “Not any more than you usually do, at any rate.”

“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” asked John. 

Sherlock reached out and ruffled his hair, that same curious gesture he’d performed before. He said, “I like your hair messy. Thank you for letting me see you with your hair messy.”

What a strange thing to thank him for, thought John. “My pleasure,” John said, sincerely. “Your hair, on the other hand, always looks a little bit like sex hair.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Sherlock denied. 

“Yes, it does.”

Sherlock cocked his head, considering. “Does it?”

“Trust me.” 

“Well.” Sherlock shifted a little bit, taking most of his weight off of John’s shoulder but staying on the bed, curled uncomfortably into a tiny sliver of space. “I have nice hair.”

John laughed. “Glad you agree.” 

“Merely being honest.”

“You have nice everything,” said John, and drew his fingers up Sherlock’s arm where it was draped over his chest. 

“So do you,” Sherlock said, against his hair. 

John closed his eyes and leaned into the affectionate nuzzling. “Nice of you to say.”

“You think I don’t mean it?”

“You’re some kind of exotic bird, and I’m a pigeon. With a broken wing.” 

“We’re athletes, John. Only the sixteen-year-olds aren’t broken yet. And some of them are, too.”

John knew what Sherlock was saying was true, that only in their chosen professions would they be considered anything close to washed up. But it was still so difficult to shake some days. John wished he hadn’t started them down this depressing conversational path. “I know,” he said, and rolled a bit to adjust how they were fitting together, nudged his nose against Sherlock’s pale skin. It had been flushed and rosy during the sex, but it was drifting back towards its more natural state now. “You’re still a swan, though. Tchaikovsky and all.”

“Stupid program,” muttered Sherlock. 

John smiled. He felt like he could drift in this comfortable haze forever. “Tell me your costume has feathers.”

“Well, it _is_ about a swan, you know, and swans have feathers,” retorted Sherlock, primly. 

John giggled, pleased, because now he couldn’t wait to watch Sherlock skate that program in full skating regalia. He would be wearing feathers. And he would be sexy as hell. John already knew it. “I bet you pull them off nicely.” 

“I am a very attractive swan with very nice sex hair,” said Sherlock.

“I want you to say that in an interview someday.”

“Done,” said Sherlock, and John felt the faint brush of lips against his head. “Now go to sleep. Busy day for you today.”

John realized he was already more than half asleep at the moment. Asleep enough that it took him a moment to remember why it was going to be a busy day. 

***

Sherlock didn’t have much experience sneaking out of bedrooms, but he understood the theory of it well enough and thought he would be quite good at it. If he could just make himself go.

He had to make himself go. The rest of John’s team was arriving and Sherlock didn’t want to be there when they got there. He didn’t want people staring and making lewd jokes and ruining the whole thing. Sherlock had wanted a perfect night and he had unexpectedly, against all odds, got one, and he didn’t want his reluctance to recognize that all good things come to an end to ruin all of it. Sherlock felt that this was a recurring problem recently, his inability to let go. He was at another Olympics, after all, when any sane, rational person would have given up. The jumps hurt these days, and the spins took effort to keep in formation, and Sherlock felt he had to fight for every edge. There had been a time when he had skated because it was the only thing that kept his mind quiet, and now every nerve in his body shouted at him the entire time he skated. 

They stopped when there was John, though. Not that he didn’t still hurt, not that it didn’t all ache like hell afterwards and he had to fight the impulse to crawl into bed and not move for the next thousand years. But it was all secondary to John’s eyes on him. It used to be that Sherlock thrilled to the competition, and that was why none of the rest of it had mattered, but Sherlock hadn’t won a competition in years and the first time he had skated a program through and felt exhilaration at the end of it in a very long time had been that night, skating to the original piece for John, when he had turned and John’s eyes had been shining as if he had _understood_. 

There was so much that Sherlock wanted to know about John, the bundle of contradictions that he was. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so many conversations he wanted to have. But John’s team was coming and John would be taken up with them and that was right and proper. John was at the Olympics and he should enjoy them instead of being monopolized away from the experience by Sherlock. But Sherlock had wanted one last perfect night, when none of his life felt like work, when it all just felt like a glorious adventure, sweet and funny and worth waking up for the next morning. Sherlock was still lying next to John and he already missed him with an intensity that took his breath away, that made him want to burrow close for one last moment of warmth. 

He didn’t let himself. He shifted slowly, gritting his teeth against the protest of his muscles, and managed to extract himself from John’s embrace. John rolled over, into the newly empty space, and his eyebrows furrowed with a slight frown but he didn’t wake. Sherlock wondered if he was dreaming. He wondered _so many things_. He was eventually going to collapse under the weight of everything he’d failed to find out about John Watson whilst he’d had the chance, he thought, ruefully. 

And there had been John, thinking that possibly Sherlock had had sex with him on some kind of experimental whim, some idea that sex might cure psychosomatic injuries or something. Sherlock wanted to say, _I don’t have sex with people, not really, certainly not lightly; you were a huge decision. You are already a looming monument in my life, and I just met you._ But that wasn’t the sort of thing you said, Sherlock knew. John had, irrationally, always looked at him so _nicely_. Sherlock had wanted to spare himself John’s expression of uncomfortable confusion, of awkward pity. Sherlock wanted to remember John’s expression the way it had been in bed, underneath him, content and smiling at him like he had done something remarkable, like it hadn’t all just been a matter of biology. 

Sherlock ruffled at John’s hair gently, and the furrow between John’s eyebrows relaxed. Sherlock smiled. The race had blown John’s hair into disarray, and Sherlock had done everything possible to keep it in disarray afterwards. Sherlock thought it was a lovely memory for him to take with him. 

“You’re going to have a fantastic Olympics, John Watson,” Sherlock told him, keeping his voice low, and then he kissed his cheek.


	3. Chapter 3

John awoke to find that Sherlock was not in the bed, and he knew immediately that Sherlock had left. He sat up and called his name anyway, cautiously, but he got no answer. 

_Damn it_ , he thought, annoyed with himself. He should have realized that. He should have told Sherlock not to leave. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep without extracting a promise that he wouldn’t leave. 

Unless Sherlock had really wanted to leave. Unless he’d gotten what he’d wanted and was just avoiding an awkward morning-after where John would have tried to be cuddly and in love and Sherlock would have—

The words, thought in his head, knocked him for such a loop that he went very still and sucked in a breath, holding it. No, he thought. That was inaccurate. He wasn’t in love with Sherlock Holmes. You didn’t fall in love with someone that quickly. He had a ridiculous crush on him, John acknowledged that, and he’d wanted him very badly, but he wasn’t _in love_. He barely knew him. And Sherlock hadn’t even bothered to stay until morning, to _say good-bye_. That told you all you needed to know, really. 

John forced himself out of bed, crinkled his nose at the state of the sheets, and got in the shower rather than deal with them. Then he picked up the house a little bit and tried not to be nervous about everyone else showing up and tried not to think about Sherlock and where he might be. There were probably reasons why Sherlock had never told him where the British skating house was. There were probably reasons why Sherlock had never given him his cell phone number. 

Yes, John thought, sourly. Very good reasons. 

It was one of the more miserable days of his life. He lounged around, stuck in a bad-tempered sulk, and so he was not really in the mood for all the good-natured greetings that happened once the rest of the hockey team arrived. He thought he would scream if they asked how he was feeling one more time, if they assured him that he’d be fine for a bit of game play. A _bit_ of _game play_. He’d made it to the Olympics, and maybe, if he was lucky, he’d see “a bit of game play.” He knew it was more than so many other people ever got to see, but he was furious with his leg, and with his head for doing it to him, and with Sherlock for messing with his head. 

He fought with himself and then eventually went to the rink in the middle of the night. It wasn’t pathetic, he told himself. Sherlock had always seemed to automatically assume that he would show up to the practice. Maybe he was still assuming that. 

But the rink was dark and quiet and all the doors were locked. If Sherlock was in there, then he was hiding from him, and causing a ruckus over that _would_ be pathetic. 

When he got back to the hockey house, Mike Stamford said to him, as he slipped into bed, “Where’d you go?”

And now everyone was going to be spying on his every move, thought John, annoyed. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said, which was true enough. “Went for a run.” 

“You know it’s going to be fine, right?” said Mike. “Don’t stress out about it. We’re all happy you’re here and you’re going to be fine.”

Could anything in the universe be more condescending than that? John thought. Could anything in the universe be _worse_?

Well, yes, John discovered the next day. There were worse things in the universe. Because there was Sherlock Holmes, in the cafeteria, where John had never seen him before, frowning thunderously at the breakfast options. John couldn’t decide if he looked terrible or wonderful, and he couldn’t decide which he preferred. What John could decide, though, very easily, was that Sherlock was there with a woman. A gorgeous brunette who was dressed to the nines and looked as if she’d stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine compared to every other athlete there. 

“And who are you glaring at?” Mike asked. “Holmes or Adler?”

“Adler?” said John, pretending he wasn’t feverishly interested in this. “Is that who that is?”

Mike nodded. “You’ve never heard of her? British figure skater. Known as ‘The Woman.’ As if she’s the only one figure skating needs. She won gold last Olympics but it was a big scandal, they said she bought the gold. Or slept her way to it. Depending on which of those you consider the ‘nicer’ version of the story. You didn’t hear about that?”

“I don’t pay attention to figure skating,” said John, truthfully, and then, “She just doesn’t look like she belongs here.” 

“If you don’t pay attention to figure skating, then you don’t know who she’s talking to,” said Mike, and John wanted to say, _No, no, I know him much better than you think_ , but let Mike keep talking. “That’s Sherlock Holmes. Also a British figure skater. He _didn’t_ win gold last Olympics. And he was supposed to.”

John had read all about this online. The general consensus had been that Sherlock had looked lethargic on the ice, had seemed disinterested. He’d made unusual technical errors and skated with a distracted air that had lost him crucial style points to make up for the technical errors. But John said, “What happened?”

“Choked,” was Mike’s succinct assessment. 

“Maybe someone bought the gold away from Sherlock,” said John, bristling a little bit, because _choked_ was such a harsh assessment and surely would have hurt Sherlock, who John knew was proud. 

“No, he just choked, plain and simple. Too much pressure. He did the same thing the Olympics before.” 

John was a little bit annoyed on Sherlock’s behalf. John knew better than anyone that it was difficult to control all the variables that might affect your Olympic experience. He said, “The question isn’t why I don’t know this stuff, it’s why you _do_.”

“My wife likes figure skating,” said Mike, simply, and kept eating. “Anyway, Holmes is a jerk, you don’t have to feel bad for him.”

“Why do you say that?” 

“He thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“He never talks to anyone,” Mike said, flatly. “He skates and talks to his coach. None of the other skaters are friends with him. He doesn’t have friends. He keeps to himself and doesn’t get involved.”

_And yet_ , thought John. And yet he’d gone to bed with him and said some very lovely things. Before slinking out before dawn. 

Sherlock walked out of the cafeteria, never even glancing in John’s direction.

***

It had been a mistake. 

Lestrade thought that Sherlock didn’t acknowledge mistakes, but Lestrade was dead wrong. Sherlock knew when he made mistakes; he replayed them endlessly in his head. Sherlock just didn’t feel the need to tell Lestrade that he did that. 

And sneaking out of John Watson’s bedroom had been a mistake. Sherlock had spent one day without him, without the prospect of him, and everything was unbearable. He was in a terrible mood, tired and snappish. Practice went horribly and his muscles screamed in so much protest that he had to give in and sleep for a bit and slept straight through his usual middle-of-the-night practice. 

When he woke up things were worse. Irene had arrived overnight, and she was _Irene_ , and he had long since stopped being fascinated by Irene and was just exhausted by her. He went to the cafeteria just hoping to be rid of her, although she followed along, saying things in that _way_ she had that always made him feel like she thought he was an idiot. He wasn’t, and that was _her_ problem, but he was in no mood to be patient without John. And he was never in a mood to be patient, anyways. 

He refused to get dressed and sulked on the sofa instead. Irene tutted over him dramatically on her way out the door to her practice, and called over her shoulder, “I’ll give Jim your love, shall I?”

_Moriarty_. He’d completely forgotten about Moriarty, in the midst of the little breakdown he was having over John. Sherlock pushed him back out of his head. Who had time for Moriarty, when he had idiotically snuck out of John’s bedroom and probably angered him and now John would never want to speak to him again. It was possible John wasn’t even thinking about him because John was probably having so much fun with his hockey team, and Sherlock hated the Olympics and had always hated the Olympics and should never have come. 

“Sherlock?” Lestrade called. 

Fantastic. Just what he needed. Sherlock turned his face into the back of the sofa and shouted back, “Go away!”

Lestrade, naturally, didn’t go away. Sherlock heard him enter the room and say, quizzically, “You okay?”

“I am perfectly fine, isn’t it obvious? I’m just not practicing today. I need a day off. Go away now.”

There was a moment of blessed silence. “This doesn’t have to do with Moriarty, does it?”

“No,” Sherlock said, in flat honesty. “It doesn’t have to do with Moriarty.”

Another moment of silence. Although Lestrade still hadn’t left. “Look. Sherlock. I know your brother thinks you’re insane to be trying this again—”

“I don’t care what my brother thinks,” Sherlock cut in, swiftly. 

“—but I actually thought it was good for you. I wanted you to be able to finish up your career at the Olympics on _your_ terms, not how it was the last couple of times. But you don’t have to do this, you know. Your legacy is—”

“A complete debacle, and anyway, I don’t care about that.” Sherlock considered the back of the sofa. “You don’t think I can win gold, do you?”

More silence. Then: “Win gold?”

Lestrade sounded so shocked that Sherlock had to turn around to make sure he hadn’t had some sort of stroke that was skewing his senses. No, Lestrade looked shocked, too. 

“Sherlock, you can’t get it into your head to try to win gold here.”

Sherlock stared at him. “What was the point of coming if not to—”

“To have fun, Sherlock. To enjoy yourself. You’re one of the sport’s best and you can show them all how it’s done. I thought you were kidding, talking about gold. You can’t win gold, Sherlock. Your programs don’t even have enough points.”

Sherlock knew that. Did Lestrade think he was an idiot? “I’ve been working on that.”

“What?”

“I’ve been fixing them. At night. I don’t want people to know yet. If I’m going to have any chance at all, I need the element of surprise.”

Lestrade looked almost dazed. “Christ,” he said. “I thought you were so calm because you’d let it all go. And now I find out you’ve been secretly harboring dreams of gold this whole time. No wonder you’re in a fit of depression.”

“I’m not in a fit of depression,” Sherlock snapped. “I’m just _resting_. Which you’re interrupting.” 

Lestrade regarded him for a moment, and then he said, “I didn’t know you really meant it. All of this.”

“I never even imagined you thought I _wouldn’t_ mean it,” retorted Sherlock, haughtily. 

“No,” Lestrade agreed, faintly. “I can see that now.” Lestrade stood and walked out slowly. 

Sherlock fiercely wrapped himself back up in his sulk and refused to think about how Lestrade thought he was delusional and was probably going off to tell Mycroft he was delusional. John wouldn’t have thought he was delusional. John would have smiled at him and asked the right questions and told him he was amazing at just the right moment. Everyone in the universe who wasn’t John was tedious beyond words. 

And Sherlock _was_ just resting. He wasn’t depressed, he was…

Lonely. 

He had never once thought of that word in relation to himself before. But it suddenly seemed surprisingly fitting. He actually _wanted another person there with him_. 

Irene returned, the wrong person entirely, and said breezily to Sherlock, “I see you’ve had a strenuous afternoon.”

“Did you actually practice,” Sherlock asked the back of the sofa, “or did you just shag another judge?”

“Either would be equally helpful for another gold,” replied Irene. “And can I help it if I knew what he liked? Now. I am off to get ready for the Opening Ceremony. World’s best buffet of one-night stands, that.” 

Sherlock blinked at the back of the sofa. The Opening Ceremony. _Oh._

***

When Lestrade arrived, Sherlock was studying his hair in the mirror and wondering if it looked enough like sex hair. Lestrade took in the official Team Great Britain outfit he was wearing and said, “Oh, you’re…up. You’re…dressed.”

“You’re quite scintillating this evening, Lestrade,” Sherlock told him, sarcastically, and decided his hair was good enough. 

“You’re going to the Opening Ceremony?” Lestrade asked, incredulously. 

“Well, you know. Last time at the Olympics. I’m supposed to be drinking it all in, having _fun_ , _enjoying_ myself.”

“All right, what are you up to?” demanded Lestrade, narrow-eyed. 

Sherlock gave him his most innocent look. “I’m not up to anything.” 

“All of a sudden you’re going to the Opening Ceremony?”

“Lestrade, every time I take your advice, you react in the most suspicious manner. It’s quite wounding, I’ll have you know.” 

“That’s because you never actually take my advice. You only take my advice when it suits your own purposes, whatever those might be. So what are you up to?”

“I’m going to the Opening Ceremony,” said Sherlock, honestly, and turned up the collar of the coat he’d been issued. “And then I thought I might go to dinner.” 

***

The staging area for the athletes was chaos. But Sherlock wasn’t trying very hard to decode the chaos. Sherlock was busy trying to get away from the British athletes. Although pushing his way through the crowd of athletes for the countries behind him was quickly disheartening. Bloody hell, how many athletes were there at this sodding ceremony? Surely the vast majority of them had no chance of winning anything and should have stayed home. 

Sherlock eventually found a piece of scaffolding and climbed up it. The venue, he thought, wasn’t quite done yet, which was his good fortune. He had a much better view from up above, and he could not only see how far back the United States delegation was but also how _many_ of them there were, in their genuinely obnoxious stars-and-stripes outfits. 

“Oh, Christ,” Sherlock complained, under his breath, because was it necessary for the country to send _so many_ athletes? It was just showing off, was what it was. 

“Sir!” security called up to him, panicked. “You’ve got to get down from there.” 

“Oh, shut up,” Sherlock grumbled to him, swinging himself down from the scaffolding. “If you didn’t want people climbing on it, you shouldn’t have left it up.” And then he grimly began shoving his way through the crowd. A couple of people gave him curious looks, since he was clearly very far away from where he was supposed to be, but most people just seemed caught up in themselves. And possibly drunk. World-class athletes, Sherlock scoffed, and kept moving. 

Finally he reached the U.S. delegation. Terrible jumpers. They were literally wearing terrible jumpers. Maybe John didn’t have terrible taste, maybe he was just _American_. Well, at least he’d finally got there. Now he just had to—

“If it isn’t Sherlock Holmes,” drawled Jim Moriarty, off to his right. “Aren’t you very far away from home?”

Just his luck. Hundreds of U.S. athletes, and he stumbled immediately onto the one he didn’t want to see. Sherlock looked at him and forced a smile. “We all are,” he said. “It’s rather the point of the Olympics.”

Moriarty somehow managed to saunter toward him through the crowd. “What could you possibly be doing in the United States delegation?”

“Trying to escape,” said Sherlock, jovially. “The path goes through you lot.” 

“Missed you today on the ice.” 

“Well, you know what they say: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Moriarty lifted his eyebrows. “The heart? Does it? Do you have one of those?”

“I’ve been reliably informed I do not.”

“And we both know that’s not quite true.” Moriarty took a step closer, which put him, in Sherlock’s view, far too close, and smiled a chilling smile. “I’ve seen it when you skate. Sometimes. Every once in a while. When you don’t realize it. You slip, and there is your heart. In really the most vulnerable position. Right there on the ice, waiting for anyone to snatch it up and burn it.” 

Sherlock thought he was still managing to smile but he could feel how tight it was. “I’ll take care not to leave it in the future. Catch you later.” He resumed pushing through the crowd. 

“Ciao, Sherlock Holmes,” he heard Moriarty say behind him. 

Sherlock shook him off, refocused himself on the goal, which was—

“John.” He fell right on top of him, pushed by some squealing bobsled driver with pink hair. 

John had turned automatically in response to someone shoving into him, and he blinked in startled surprise. “Sherlock,” he said, and then, “Did you know this is the United States?”

John was so adorable. Sherlock wanted to kiss him for the rest of the Opening Ceremony. At least. He smiled at him, and he knew he looked like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it. “Oh, dear,” he said. “I was wondering what all the stars and stripes and ‘USA’s meant.” 

“Watson!” someone called, accompanying it with a sharp whistle. 

John ignored it in favor of staring up at Sherlock, which was quite all right with Sherlock. “Have you switched nationalities?”

“I was looking for you. Idiot,” Sherlock told him, fondly. Really, he couldn’t believe the restorative effects just _talking_ to John Watson could have. He needed to study this in great detail. 

John looked positively stunned. He also licked his lips. Sherlock took this as a good sign. He said, stupidly, “What?” and Sherlock even thought _that_ was adorable. 

“Dinner,” Sherlock said. 

“What?” said John again. 

“Watson!” someone called again. John continued to ignore it. 

“After the ceremony, dinner.” 

John stared at him, and Sherlock held his breath, and dimly, in the background, the music of the Opening Ceremony was crashing. 

Then John said, “Yes. Yes. Dinner. How—”

“You have your mobile?” Sherlock assumed, holding out his hand. 

John fished it out of the pocket of his terrible jumper and handed it over.

“Do all Americans wear terrible jumpers?” Sherlock asked, conversationally, as he saved himself to John’s contacts. “Is it a national trait?” 

“Sherlock,” said John. “What—”

Not the place to have a conversation, thought Sherlock. Loud and crowded and Moriarty could be behind every corner. “Text me after the ceremony,” he said, and started moving away. 

“John!” someone shouted, and arrived next to John, and then blinked after Sherlock in confusion. 

John didn’t even acknowledge that his friend had arrived. “But where are you going?” John called after him. 

“Can’t walk in with the wrong country, John!” Sherlock called back. And really, John was the most adorable idiot Sherlock had ever met. 

***

“Was that Sherlock Holmes?” Mike asked John, as Sherlock was swallowed up by the crowd. 

“Yeah,” said John, staring after him even though he could no longer see him. 

“Do you _know_ him?” Mike sounded incredibly curious about this turn of events. 

John pocketed his cell phone. “I was here early, and he was here early, and we were the only two people using the ice rink for a little while.”

Mike lifted his eyebrows. “So you made friends? With _Sherlock Holmes_?”

More than friends, thought John. Or less than friends. It was all so confusing. What did you call a one-night stand who crawled out before dawn and didn’t contact you before suddenly showing up before you marched out in the Parade of Nations at the Olympics? John wasn’t sure there was a term for that. 

He shrugged, hoping that Mike would drop it. 

“That’s why you were defending him the other day,” Mike said, astutely. “Because you’re friends with him. Why didn’t you say so?”

“It doesn’t really matter, Mike,” said John. “We’re about to walk in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, and you want to talk about British figure skating?”

“Yeah, they sent me over here to get you,” Mike said, finally moving on from the topic of conversation. “We thought we’d all walk out together. Hockey solidarity.”

John nodded and moved over to the rest of the hockey team and tried to drink in this entire experience. It was the only Opening Ceremony he was going to participate in, and he wanted to really savor it. He refused to spend the entire time brooding about Sherlock Holmes and the phone in his pocket. So he let the moment of stepping out into the middle of the stadium to the cheers of the crowd figuratively knock him over. He waved to the crowd, feeling giddy, and he sat through the rest of the ceremony with the rest of the athletes, and they were on their phones, taking selfies and tweeting, but John refused to take his phone out of his pocket because his phone contained Sherlock Holmes’s number. Instead, he made sure to breathe and live there, in the moment, so he could remember it all for the rest of his life. 

And then, after the torch was lit, as the fireworks of celebration filled the sky overhead, John fished out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. _Sherlock Holmes_ , read the entry, and John hit the button to text him and then spent a long time staring at the screen. Fireworks burst, the sparks showering his display with all different colors and the noise echoing through him, and finally he settled on just one word. _Where?_

The response was immediate, and John liked to think that Sherlock had been sitting by his phone waiting. More likely he’d just realized the Opening Ceremony was drawing to a close. 

_Cafeteria. When can you be there? –SH_

If he left now, John thought he could beat a lot of the crowd, because he thought everyone else would want to mill around, taking pictures, enjoying the moment. Even so, it was going to be a crowded mess. _Thirty minutes._

_See you then. –SH_

Why did he sign his texts? John wondered. As if he wasn’t going to know who the text was from otherwise. 

John decided that was a conundrum for another day. He wondered if he should tell everyone that he was taking off, and then decided that they would just assume he’d gotten lost in the chaos. It wasn’t like he was one of the vital members of the team who everyone would freak out over losing. 

So John just slid his way through the crowd of athletes. He was right that he beat the rush out of the stadium, that the athlete entrance was basically empty as he made his way out of it. And he caught a shuttle to the Village right away and was actually five minutes early by the time he reached the cafeteria. 

Sherlock was already there. He’d changed out of his Team Great Britain outfit and was wearing black pants and a charcoal wool coat that swept around his knees. John felt like an idiot in the obnoxious USA outfit. 

And he also felt annoyed. Because Sherlock, as usual, looked good enough to eat, calm and self-assured in his sleek, expensive outfit, with his tumbled sex hair as perfectly debauched as usual, and John knew he should have considered himself lucky to have had that for a whole night but he was mostly annoyed at the insult of being left behind without a word. 

Sherlock smiled at him as he came up, light in those ice-rink eyes of his, and John said, flatly, “I’m mad at you.”

The expression of joy faded off Sherlock’s face, and then John felt bad, but he also felt like he deserved an explanation, or an apology, or _something_. He couldn’t just come whenever Sherlock called for him and then allow himself to be cast aside whenever Sherlock didn’t feel like dealing with him anymore. He needed to have more self-respect than that, damn it. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock, faltering a bit. “I—”

“Not a _single word_?” John demanded. “We share all those bodily fluids, and then _not a single word_?”

Sherlock blinked. “Share bodily fluids?” he echoed. 

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, I just didn’t expect you to put it so clinically. Do you always speak like a doctor when you’re upset?”

John ignored him. “We didn’t make promises. I get that. But you don’t get to change the rules all around now and take me to _dinner_.” 

Sherlock looked at him for a moment. And then he said, "So did you just come to yell at me?” 

John realized suddenly what he was doing here. And what he was doing was letting the most fabulous opportunity of his life slip through his fingers. He had thought Sherlock had wanted nothing to do with him. That turned out not to be true. Sherlock had wanted to see him again. Sherlock’s face had lit up with joy upon seeing him. John pushed aside the hurt and the desire to hurt back and focused instead on the idea that Sherlock might still want him. And he didn’t care if it made him pathetic, he thought he would have crawled on his hands and knees to have dinner with Sherlock at that point. 

“No,” he said, after a moment. “I came to let you take me to dinner.” 

And there it was, the joy again, incandescent on Sherlock’s face. John thought it was frightening to consider the number of things he would do to keep that look on Sherlock’s face. 

“Come on,” Sherlock said, and began walking away from the cafeteria. 

John hesitated. Not that he was opposed to more sex—he was the opposite of opposed to more sex—but he thought maybe they needed to have a discussion about the terms and conditions of that sex, as dull as that made him sound. John thought his heart needed that. “The cafeteria—” he began. 

“Not eating in the cafeteria,” Sherlock said, over his shoulder. “Far too many eyes. I know a place.”

Of course he did. John, after a moment, followed.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock watched John settle into the comfort of the squishy chair and glance over the menu. Sherlock had chosen the restaurant carefully, attracted by the level of seclusion offered by the low lighting and the scattered seating, and he liked how the seating was cozy and intimate. He sensed that John liked such things, old-fashioned armchairs, overstuffed to the point of protest if anyone sat in them that they hadn’t been molded to. It was no Angelo's, but that would have to wait until he got John to London. 

He thought he had made the right choice here. John looked as if he relaxed a bit, away from the pressure of the Olympic Village. He looked less upset with him, Sherlock thought. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. 

The waitress appeared. Sherlock didn’t allow her to distract him from his comfortable contemplation of John’s face. 

John said, “Um, this, I guess,” pointing, and then looked expectantly over at Sherlock. 

“I’m fine,” Sherlock said, and waved his hand negligently. 

“Wait, you’re not eating?” John said. 

“I’m not hungry.” 

“I’ll just have a glass of wine, then,” John told the waitress.

“You can eat.”

“It’s late, Sherlock. I was only eating because I thought you were going to eat.”

Sherlock said to the waitress, “Bring us a bottle.” 

“Of what?” she asked, in heavily accented English. 

Sherlock supposed that was a fair question, and also he could not think of anything he cared about less in that moment. “Anything you like.” 

The waitress moved away with a shrug. 

John gave him an amused look. “You know she’s going to bring us the most expensive bottle.”

“It’s fine,” Sherlock said, because John was sitting opposite him and smiling at him and everything in the universe was fine. 

“Well, at least it will justify us taking up this table. I wish you’d told me you were going to change, you know. I feel like an idiot in this.” He glanced at his outfit and wrinkled his nose. 

“Oh, I think you look fantastic in your terrible American jumper,” said Sherlock. “Very patriotic of you.”

“Oh, shut up,” John said, good-naturedly. “Just because you Brits were all decked out in prim and proper Burberry.”

“It wasn’t Burberry,” Sherlock said, confused. 

“You’ve just exhausted my knowledge of British fashion,” John told him. 

“Did you like the Opening Ceremony?” Sherlock asked. 

“It was great. Why didn’t you stay for it? Does it get boring after your third one?”

Sherlock shook his head. “I don’t go to the Opening Ceremony.”

John looked surprised. “What, _ever_?”

Sherlock shook his head again. 

“You didn’t even go to your first one?” 

“That would be exactly what I’m telling you,” Sherlock said, as the waitress arrived with a bottle of champagne. Sherlock didn’t even bother to look at the label. John was absolutely right, she’d brought the most expensive thing in the place. 

He watched her pour, watched John lift his flute and take a sip and then put it down. “Why not?”

“Why don’t I go to the Opening Ceremony?”

“ _Ever_.” 

“I didn’t see the point.”

“Do you have to have a point to everything you do?”

Sherlock realized he’d never been asked that question before. It didn’t even make sense to him. He tipped his head quizzically. “What would be the point of doing something without a point? That’s…almost tautological.” 

“The point of doing something without a point is exactly that: it doesn’t have a point. Anyway, you’re wrong.” John gestured at him with his flute. 

Sherlock lifted his eyebrows. “I am almost never wrong.”

“You’ve got an entire skating routine that you don’t skate in competition. What’s the point of _that_?” John looked triumphant as he sipped his champagne. 

Sherlock reached for his champagne to cover that he needed time to consider what to say. He sipped it, registered absently the buzz of the bubbles on his tongue, swallowed, thought it was very good quality indeed, and then said, “I told you: I can’t skate it cleanly.”

John smiled at him and said, simply, “There’s more to it than that.”

Sherlock was torn between being impressed that John knew that so unerringly and being irritated that he did. “No, there isn’t.” 

John smiled and sipped his champagne and Sherlock, feeling off-balance, took a bigger gulp than he’d intended. 

John, looking suddenly serious, studied his champagne very closely and said, “Why did you leave?”

“I…” Sherlock had known John would ask him that question. He’d had an entire speech all prepared. And yet he suddenly couldn’t remember a word of it. “There were people… I didn’t want…I didn’t want you to have to… I mean, if you didn’t want to… _I_ didn’t want to…” John was staring at him as if he’d grown another head and Sherlock didn’t blame him. He swallowed the torrent of words and took another gulp of champagne and said, “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You didn’t know what else to do,” John repeated, thoughtfully. 

“Yes.”

“You could have _stayed_. Those were your options: you could have left, or you could have stayed. You didn’t even leave a _note_. And then you weren’t at the rink—”

“At the rink?”

“Yes. I thought maybe you were expecting me to show up at the rink but you—”

“I slept through it,” Sherlock said, honestly. “I didn’t think you would be there, anyways. You had your…friends. I didn’t think you’d be thinking about me.”

“Are you _insane_? Have you _had_ better sex than that?” 

Sherlock couldn’t help it; he felt warm with proud pleasure. “Did you enjoy it?”

John was still staring at him like he was a lunatic. “Were you not clear about how much I enjoyed it?” 

“I thought…” _I’m terrible at deductions like that_ , he wanted to say. “Tell me how you became a hockey player.”

John blinked. “What?”

“I mean, I’m sure I could deduce it, and I’ve read your Wikipedia entry, of course, but I’d rather hear it from you.” 

“We were just talking about sex,” John pointed out. 

“I’m aware.”

“And now you want to talk about…hockey?”

John looked as if he needed clarification. So Sherlock gave it to him. “John, I don’t care what we talk about, as long as you keep talking,” he said, in exasperation. “You have a nice voice and you say interesting things and you ask appropriate questions. So just choose a topic and we’ll discuss it.” 

John stared at him. He said, after a moment, “Whooping cough.” 

“Not what I expected, but all right,” said Sherlock. “What would you like to discuss about whooping cough?”

“My grandmother had a sister who died of it,” said John. 

“Indeed?” said Sherlock. 

“She was born premature and the kids who lived next door to them had whooping cough and she didn’t really stand a chance.”

“Yes, babies are more susceptible to the spread of such contagions. If you wished to murder an infant, an injection of some sort would be a most unsuspicious way to do it, I’ve always thought.”

“What are we even talking about?” John asked. 

Sherlock was irritated. “ _You_ chose the topic.” 

“Because you said the most _ridiculous_ thing.”

“What did I say?” Sherlock asked, confused. 

“That we could talk about anything as long as I kept talking.”

“Why is that ridiculous? It’s true.”

“It isn’t true. It can’t be true. I could pick a topic that would bore you and—”

“You couldn’t. You generally speak about topics I find boring, and I haven’t found them boring yet so long as you’re the one talking about them.”

“That is curiously flattering in the most insulting way possible,” said John slowly. 

Sherlock hesitated, unsure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Or you’re welcome.” Made sense to allow for every eventuality. 

John laughed, and Sherlock beamed and wanted to say, _Wait, tell me how to do that again_. He looked at him in that delightful John-Watson way he had and said, “Talking to you makes me feel dizzy, you know.”

This gave Sherlock more pause. He’d just made John laugh, but that didn’t mean that John wasn’t also exhausted by him. People got tired of him quickly. He had to manage that. “I know, I’ll try to make sure that I don’t—”

He had been looking at his champagne, which was how John managed to get a hand into the collar of his coat and his mouth on Sherlock’s in a hard kiss before Sherlock had realized he was going to. John pulled back a bit, keeping his hand in Sherlock’s collar, and Sherlock blinked at him in shock. How did John Watson keep _surprising_ him? It should have been impossible.

John said, “Don’t change a single thing, do you hear me?”

Sherlock nodded mutely. 

“Except that you’re not leaving in the middle of the night next time. Change that.” 

“I don’t have a roommate,” Sherlock rushed out. 

“How’d you manage that?”

“No one wants to room with me. It’s easier to leave me alone than deal with the complaints. There’s Irene, and Anderson and Donovan—they’re the pairs competitors—but we could sneak you in and then—”

“Yes.” John nodded shortly. And then he swore. “Oh, Christ, we’ve got to pay for this stupid bottle of champagne you ordered.”

Sherlock fished out some amount of local currency, glanced at it, and threw it on the table. 

“Um,” said John, looking at it. “Do you know how much—”

“Yes,” said Sherlock, and took his hand to pull him out of the restaurant. 

“Blasé with how you spend your money, is what we’ve just established,” remarked John. 

“It’s my brother’s money. And he’s incredibly annoying.” 

“So I just got seduced by a bottle of champagne bought for me by your brother,” John concluded. 

Sherlock glanced at him. “Problem?” 

John considered. “No, right now the only problem is that we’re wearing too much clothing.” 

“I can’t wait to get you out of that jumper,” Sherlock said. 

“I can’t tell if that’s lust or fashion indignation talking.” 

Sherlock hesitated. “Is it’s all right if it’s both?”

John kissed him for a very long time after that. Sherlock was perfectly okay with that. 

***

“You want me to what?” John said. 

“Shhhh!” Sherlock told him, sharply. “Do you want to wake the whole house up?”

“Well, no, because I’m not having nearly enough fun right now. Later, I don’t really care if we wake the whole house up, but I don’t want to wake the whole house up because we’re having a disagreement because you want me to _break into your bedroom_.” 

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Sherlock said, dismissively. “It isn’t breaking in if I’ve invited you.”

“Sherlock. I don’t know how to climb up the side of a house.”

“You’re an _athlete_ ,” said Sherlock. 

“Why do you think that means that I know how to do everything? I’m a hockey player with a recovering shoulder injury and a limp—”

“You don’t have a limp, that’s psychosomatic.” 

“Could _you_ climb up the side of the house?” 

“Of course I could. How do you think I catch criminals?”

John blinked at him. “You catch criminals by climbing up houses?”

“Sometimes. If needs must.”

“I want to hear more about this,” said John. 

Sherlock glowered at him. “ _Later_. Look, there’s nothing to it. This gutter here is perfectly—” Sherlock touched the gutter and it swayed alarmingly. 

“Jesus,” said John, and took a step back, eyes wide. “There is no fucking way, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked annoyed. “Everything at the Olympics is always done on the _cheap_ ,” he complained. 

“I don’t see what the difficulty here is. Surely everyone’s asleep right now. And, anyway, I’m not sneaking out again in the morning, so they’ll meet me then.”

Sherlock fell silent, contemplating the house, and then he turned to him and said in a rush, “Don’t be angry, but I don’t want to share you.”

John lifted his eyebrows. “Okay,” he agreed, slowly. 

“I mean that you’re… And they’re…”

Sherlock looked oddly desperate about the whole thing, and for a moment John was offended that he didn’t want to be seen with him, and then John remembered that Mike had said Sherlock didn’t have friends. Maybe he didn’t get along with the rest of his team. John said, “Do you think they’re going to make a big deal about this?” It was why John would never have suggested going back to the hockey house. Well, that and the complete lack of privacy there. 

“I think that…I think that…Oh, never mind.” Sherlock, looking miserable and resigned, started walking toward the house. 

John, confused, grabbed for his hand and pulled him back. “Hey. What is it?” 

Sherlock shook his head. “Nothing.” 

“Sherlock.” John cupped his hands around Sherlock’s face, because he thought Sherlock seemed to need it. “You know you could tell me. Whatever it is. Did you used to sleep with the Woman one? I don’t care. I’m not jealous.” He was outrageously jealous, but this is what mature people did, pretend they weren’t at all jealous. 

Sherlock laughed without sounding amused. “No.” 

“Okay.” John continued to be bewildered. “Do they not know that you’re…” John tried to consider the word he wanted to use and realized he didn’t know how to characterize Sherlock’s sexuality yet. So he said, “…with men?”

Sherlock shook his head impatiently. “Who cares about _that_?” 

Which didn’t actually clarify the issue. “Well, whatever it is, we’ll try not to let them see me, but I’m not climbing up the side of the house, Sherlock.” 

“Oh, it doesn’t matter how much we try. They’ll _know_. Irene is bloody— _Oh_.” 

“What?” John asked, because plainly Sherlock had had an epiphany. 

“You’ve seen me skate the original program.”

“The what?”

“The one I don’t skate in competition.”

“Yes,” John agreed. “I’ve seen it, but there isn’t going to be a quiz or something, is there?” 

“No. Just. You’ve seen it. So yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Come on,” said Sherlock, and used their joined hands to pull him forward. 

Sherlock liked holding hands, was John’s assessment. Sherlock liked _touching_ him, was John’s further assessment. John was perfectly okay with that. John wished to encourage as much touching as Sherlock wished to engage in. But the holding hands thing kept giving him pause. There was something so very…achingly sweet about it. The idea that even though right now they were both fairly desperate to tear each other’s clothes off, Sherlock was manifesting it in joining their hands together, chaste and almost shy. 

Sherlock, John thought, was going to absolutely _kill_ him. And God, he was going to love every single moment of it. 

The house was dark and silent, and John wondered briefly if the hockey house was, too. If anybody was looking for him. He’d turned his phone to silent and hadn’t even thought to look at it since meeting up with Sherlock. He should have sent a text, let Mike know he was all right. 

Or had anybody even noticed? John couldn’t decide what would be worse: provoking a manhunt because he’d wanted to get laid, or being able to disappear without a word for hours and have no one even blink about it. 

They tip-toed into Sherlock’s room and he shut the door and dropped John’s hand. 

John pretended he wasn’t bereft about that. 

"Give me a second,” he said, and pulled his phone out. There were texts, two of them, from Mike. _You ok?_ said the first one. The second one, _I’m going to assume you found a hot date_. John texted back, _I’m fine, see you tomorrow_ , and shut his phone off. There was no way he was going to be able to hide an Olympic fling, so he supposed he needed to just own it. 

Sherlock had shrugged out of his coat and was sitting on the bed in his plum-colored button-down, watching John and looking uncertain. He cleared his throat when John pocketed his mobile and said, “I was gratified that you texted using correct grammar.”

John laughed, because Sherlock was _adorable_. “Well,” said John, walking over to him, “you’re welcome, then.” 

Sherlock tipped his head back to hold John’s gaze and swallowed, and John tipped his head, wondering why he looked so nervous. And then Sherlock said, carefully, licking his lips, “I didn’t…plan for this.”

John didn’t know what to make of that. He hadn’t intended to get involved with someone at the Olympics, either, if that’s what Sherlock had meant. “Okay,” he said, a bit bemused. 

“No, I mean, I didn’t… _plan_ for this.” He said it meaningfully, waggling his eyebrows, as if hoping John would catch his meaning. 

John did, finally. Sherlock didn’t have supplies for sex. And John was confused. Because he’d felt incredibly played just two days ago, waking up to an empty bed. He’d felt used and manipulated, frankly. And he’d been hating himself for letting himself fall for it again now, for letting himself be so thoroughly seduced by expensive champagne and a few well-phrased lines. But Sherlock wasn’t behaving as if he’d set up a seduction here. In fact, Sherlock was saying he _hadn’t_. And John didn’t know what to make of that, couldn’t figure out what Sherlock intended by any of this. 

But he did know that Sherlock was gazing up at him and still looking nervous, and John heard himself say, “It’s fine.” He brushed his hands through Sherlock’s hair, deliberately closing around fistfuls of it. Sherlock’s eyes drifted closed. He leaned into the touch, practically purring. 

John leaned down and kissed him, and it was gentle, much gentler than any kiss they had shared before. Sherlock tasted like the champagne, and John licked at it, chasing the flavor. Sherlock made a noise, needy and encouraging, and leaned up to get a better angle at John’s mouth, then pulled him onto the bed with him. Another stupid single bed, and there was jostling to get adjusted, but John barely registered it because there was kissing, and Sherlock’s lips and tongue and teeth and taste were literally intoxicating. The champagne had done nothing for him, but his head was swimming from Sherlock. 

The build was slow and luxurious, their breaths loud and heavy and practically in tandem as they traded control of the kiss back and forth. There was no tipping point when things became more urgent, they just got there gradually. Sherlock pulled John’s USA sweater over his head, following it with the T-shirt John had been wearing underneath. John unbuttoned Sherlock’s shirt and thought that he loved the time it took, the way it felt like unwrapping a particularly good Christmas present. Shoes required more jostling, as did pants, but when they were settled everything went back to a feeling of delicious languor. John bent his head to his task and licked and sucked and Sherlock closed his hands in John’s hair and made the most incredible noises, soft sounds and exclamations and nonsense words and his name. 

When Sherlock pushed John over and slid down his body and repaid the favor, keeping his unearthly eyes focused unerringly on John, hooded and heavy-lidded under his disheveled hair, John had to close his own eyes because he couldn’t bear it. And he said the same things as Sherlock, mindless and desperate, overcome with pleasure. He could not recall anything in his life that had ever felt as good as Sherlock’s mouth around him. 

After the climax, Sherlock pulled himself back up John’s body and said, “That was much neater; we should have done it that way the first time.”

John ignored the unromantic statement and pulled Sherlock to him for a kiss. Sherlock kissed back, focused and intent, and _that_ was romantic, so John excused the lack of sweet nothing. And then he said, firmly, “You’re not going anywhere.”

“This is my room, John,” said Sherlock, sounding almost amused. 

“I don’t care. If I wake up and you’re not here, I’m going to be very upset again.” John realized this was a hollow threat, because he’d fallen back into bed pretty easily. “ _More_ upset.”

“I wasn’t trying to upset you,” Sherlock told him. 

“Idiot,” said John. “Now move over a bit and find a way to share this bed.” 

“There’s another bed in this room,” said Sherlock. 

John blinked as he realized Sherlock was right. “You’re a genius.” And then, “Do you think we can move furniture around without everyone asking us what we’re doing?”

Sherlock looked offended and rolled out of the bed. He pulled his underwear back on but nothing else, which John appreciated. John especially appreciated the view as Sherlock leaned over to tug at the other bed. 

“You have a truly terrific ass,” John informed him. 

“Thrilling that you think so,” Sherlock said, “but do you think you could help?”

Smiling, John pulled himself off of the bed and got totally distracted by the violin case tucked in the corner of the room. “Do you play?”

“Hmm?” Sherlock glanced over his shoulder, still pulling at the bed. “A bit.”

“No wonder you choose the music you do,” remarked John, and then went over to help Sherlock, and between the two of them, with Sherlock hissing “shh!” and “careful!” every few seconds, they managed to get the two beds pushed together. And by the time they accomplished that, John was no longer the least bit tired. He stretched out on one bed, and Sherlock stretched out on the other, and then John pulled up a duvet and rolled toward the crease of the two beds connecting and managed to get them cuddled under the single duvet together. 

Sherlock looked at John critically, and then ruffled his hair. “Better,” he said. 

“You’re obsessed with making a mess of my hair,” said John, good-naturedly. 

“Mmm. The number of obsessions I have regarding you are numerous,” said Sherlock. “That’s just one of them.” He pushed the duvet out of the way a bit, watching his fingers curiously walk over John’s body, all the little nicks and scars of a lifetime playing hockey. 

“I was good at it,” John said, into the unbearably intimate silence that had fallen over them in the wake of Sherlock’s statement. 

Sherlock glanced up at him, lifting his eyebrows in wordless query. 

“You wanted to know why hockey. I was good at it.”

“And why not figure skating, for instance?”

“Sherlock.” 

“Yes?”

“Do you really think I could ever have been a figure skater?”

“I don’t see why not. You’re very graceful, you just don’t realize it. And you’re short.”

“Yes. Thank you for pointing that out.”

“I actually think that’s why you chose hockey instead,” Sherlock continued, eyes still watching the skipping of his fingers over John’s chest. “You like a fight. You’re the right height for figure skating. But you would have preferred having to fight your way to hockey respect.” 

“I chose hockey long before I knew how tall I would get.”

“Yes. You’re a fighter. That makes sense.”

“Don’t pretend you’re not a fighter, too. You’re at your fourth Olympics. That takes some fighting.”

“It’s a different sort of fighting,” Sherlock said. “It’s _figurative_ fighting.”

“Why did you pick figure skating?”

“I liked dancing,” said Sherlock, honestly. “This was dancing on ice, with a bit of physics thrown in. My parents would tell you I was a precocious child who needed to be kept busy. It kept me busy.”

“And you chose it before you knew you were going to be too tall for it.”

“But I’m not too tall for it,” Sherlock rejoined. “Any more than you are too short for hockey. As you’ve proven.”

“Yeah,” said John. “For all the good it did me. Get selected for the Olympic team, finally, after a long career of just missing out, and then get injured right afterward.”

“But you have selected a team sport,” said Sherlock. “Which means that you don’t have to carry the whole thing, you just need to choose your moment to dazzle.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Whereas you’re responsible for all…five minutes of dazzle?”

“Approximately seven,” Sherlock corrected. 

“Approximately seven. All of that work, and it comes down to approximately seven minutes.” 

“When you’re skating it, it feels like a lifetime,” said Sherlock, and settled himself down under the duvet, snuggling into his pillow. 

John watched him, thinking he looked adorable getting ready to sleep, very young and very cute. The sight of him, with his cloud of dark hair tangled all over his head, the duvet gathered around him, a cheek pressed into his pillow and his eyelashes making dark smudges against his sharp cheekbones, made John feel like he couldn’t breathe, like a weight had settled onto his chest that he couldn’t move. He laid next to Sherlock and just _stared_. 

Sherlock said, without opening his eyes, “What?”

“What?” said John. 

“You’re staring at me.” 

_It’s possible I’m in love with you_ , thought John, amazed by it. What he said was, “You’re just a very attractive swan.”

Sherlock chuckled. “Go to sleep, John.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a cake movement on Tumblr and I bowed to the pressure of the beautiful photos of desserts and here's another chapter. A really, really short one because that's all I have ready at the moment. Sorry!
> 
> P.S. The team figure skating event in Sochi started the day before the Opening Ceremony. I forgot about that when I wrote this fic. Hence why this fic isn't explicitly in Sochi, because it already doesn't make Sochi sense...

John woke to the sound of people moving around in the house and Sherlock, next to him, completely hidden under the duvet except for his mop of hair. He had nudged closer to John overnight, and now had his face pressed completely against John’s bad shoulder, which indicated that he had to be truly asleep indeed. John didn’t want to jostle him, but of course, now that he was awake, his shoulder was loudly protesting the position it was in. 

After a moment of indecision, he decided to try to wriggle away from Sherlock without waking him. 

Sherlock mumbled a protest and made a grab for him, but, in doing so, he changed the angle he was resting at, sprawling more fully onto John’s chest, and that was a much more comfortable position for John so he stopped trying to wriggle away and let Sherlock settle. 

“Do you have anything to do today?” asked Sherlock, sleepily, into John’s skin. 

John laughed. “I have to get ready for the Olympics, but other than that, I’m entirely free.” 

“Mmmgood,” said Sherlock, and apparently intended to go back to sleep. 

Judging from the angle of the sun in the room, John thought he could just let him sleep a little longer before he had to be at practice. 

The bedroom door opened, a woman’s voice saying, “Sherlock, dear—Oh. I _thought_ I heard interesting goings-on in here last night.”

John was at the wrong angle to see the door and couldn’t get there without jostling Sherlock. 

Sherlock didn’t even move, though. Sherlock said, sounding resigned, still lying heavily on John, “Go away, Irene.” 

“There’s coffee on,” said Irene, sounding devilish, “if your guest’s the type.” And then the door closed. 

"So much for keeping me secret.”

“I knew that was going to happen,” Sherlock grumbled. “She needs to know _everything_.” 

“You strongly dislike her,” John concluded. 

“Of course I dislike her. I don’t like anybody, John,” said Sherlock, but then punctuated the point by snuggling harder against John. 

“Okay,” John said, marveling at the current evidence to the contrary. “So how are you going to sneak me out of here?”

“Why do you have to go?” Sherlock sounded serious as he said it. 

“Because I have practice. Don’t you?”

“Today’s a mess because of the team competition.”

“Team ice skating?” said John. 

“Mmm,” said Sherlock, sounding disinterested. 

“Are you competing in that?” he asked, amazed at how calm Sherlock was being. 

“Oh, God, no. Can you think of anything more awful than depending on _other people_ to win you a medal?”

“Um,” said John. 

“I meant anything more awful _for me_ ,” said Sherlock, impatiently. 

“Right,” said John. “So you’re not competing.”

“No. Everyone else is, but I’m waiting until the individual medals. They wouldn’t want me anyways.” 

That gave John pause. “Why wouldn’t they want you?”

“John. Again. Does anything about me say ‘team player’ to you?”

John agreed that he might not be the epitome of a team player, but still. Well, he supposed it was Sherlock’s call. “Well, I have to go to practice. So what’s the plan for sneaking me out?”

Sherlock was silent for a minute. “You’re sure you don’t want to try climbing out the window?”

“Sherlock,” said John, firmly. 

“Then there’s nothing for it. If they try to talk to you, just remember that they’re idiots.”

***

John thought maybe they would be able to just duck out of the house, but the living room was crowded with people who all looked at him in avid interest, and John felt like an idiot in his stupid USA national outfit. He tried to at least smooth his hair, which Sherlock had kept ruffling into more disarray every time John had tried to comb it down while they’d been getting ready. 

“Hi,” said John, with a little wave, trying not to be awkward. 

“Hi,” said Irene Adler, making it sound filthy.

Sherlock said, briskly, “This is John Watson, he’s an American hockey player, he’s going to be staying with us during the Olympics, and he’s on his way to practice, good-bye.”

“But we didn’t even get to—” shouted Irene. 

Sherlock pulled John outside and closed the door. Then he smiled brightly at John. “Let’s get you to practice.” 

“Okay,” said John, bewildered, trying to keep up with Sherlock’s pace. “Can we talk about—”

“Nope,” said Sherlock. 

“No, hang on, I think we need to.” 

“What does it matter about them?” Sherlock asked. 

“Them? Who cares about them?” Although Sherlock was awfully sensitive about them, and John wondered just what the hell sort of story they could tell, if he was so eager to keep John away from them. “I want to talk about how I’m staying with you during the Olympics.”

“Aren’t you?” said Sherlock, without slowing his pace in the slightest. 

“Well, I think I should—”

Sherlock turned abruptly and kissed him hard, silencing him. 

“And that just happened in the middle of the Olympic Village right in front of everyone,” remarked John, when Sherlock had pulled back. 

“No one’s paying attention. And did I or did I not just prove my point?”

“Maybe,” said John, unwilling to allow Sherlock to be so ridiculously smug so early in the morning. 

“I did.”

“I think I should make you work a little harder,” said John. 

“I bought you the world’s most expensive bottle of champagne,” Sherlock pointed out. 

"Your brother did."

“Technicality.”

“Well, I’m taking that entire situation into consideration.” 

“You’re going to have a fabulous practice, your leg is absolutely fine, try not to come back with too many bruises, they might impede my plans for tonight.”

“Still very sure of yourself,” remarked John, but he was smiling as he said it. 

“In the meantime, whilst you’re practicing, I’m going to break into your room and steal all of your things and put them in my room.”

“Just, whatever you do, don’t climb up the drainpipe to get into my window, okay?” said John, openly grinning now. Because he couldn’t help it, he genuinely thought Sherlock Holmes was the most charming person he’d ever met, and he couldn’t understand why he had any reputation otherwise. 

Sherlock said, “I can climb a bloody drainpipe without being a baby about it.” 

“I’m going to shoot a puck at you.”

“And I shall evade it. Using my very best camel spin.”

John laughed and said, “Stop trying to kiss me, I’ve got to go to practice.” 

“You’ll text me when you’re done and then you’ll move in with me,” said Sherlock, and John let him succeed in kissing him. 

“Of course I will,” John heard himself say. 

“Good.” Sherlock took a step away. 

“We’ve only just met and we’re already moving in together?” John said, trying to sound facetious but really being a bit alarmed by how quickly things were moving and how _right_ it felt all the same. 

“I think we know quite enough to be going on with, don’t you?” said Sherlock, and then reached out and ruffled John’s hair again. 

“Sherlock,” John complained, half-heartedly. 

“It’s better,” Sherlock said. 

“I feel like an idiot,” said John, and smoothed it back down. “Why don’t we keep the sex hair look special for you?”

“Oh.” Sherlock practically beamed at him. “I like that idea much better.”


	6. Chapter 6

John went to the hockey house first, because he needed to change out of the stupid costume and get into training clothes. When he walked into the house, he was greeted with a round of applause. 

“Yes, yes,” he said, and tried not to look embarrassed as he hurried through to his room, where Mike was sitting on one of the beds, scrolling through his phone. 

He looked up when John walked in. “Look who decided to show up.”

“Yeah,” said John, and busied himself finding clothes. 

“And did you have a pleasant evening? Leave it to you to find yourself a hot chick. What does that make now, three continents?”

John paused and looked at Mike and considered, but decided there was no reason to lie about it. He didn’t think Mike would care. And if Mike did care, then John thought it was important to know that. John liked to think that none of them would care—he trusted his teammates. And John didn’t think there was any point to lying about Sherlock. Not if he was moving in with him for the remainder of the Olympics. “Not a chick,” he said, and disappeared into the bathroom to change. 

“What?” he heard Mike ask. 

“This one’s not a chick,” John called back, turning the shower on. He’d taken a brief, hurried shower at Sherlock’s because he’d been too gross not to, but he wanted a better one before he went off to practice. 

“Well. That’s different,” he heard Mike say over the sound of the water. “I didn’t know you…”

“Not like I go around advertising my personal life, do I?” said John and stepped into the shower. If he acted like this was no big deal, maybe everyone else would follow his lead. 

John showered and shaved and when he was done, Mike was still in the room, and still on his phone. 

“What are you doing anyway?” asked John. He didn’t think Mike was trying to spy on him, but he’d kind of hoped to get the room to himself for a second, to just gather his thoughts. He’d had a whirlwind couple of days. 

“I told one of my endorsements I’d tweet the Games.” 

“Tweets are short. Have you been composing one for the past half an hour?”

“Shut up,” said Mike, good-naturedly. “I’ve been scheduling some generic ones so I don’t have to worry about it. You’re not stressed out about the practice, are you?”

Ah. So that’s why Mike was hanging around in the room. He didn’t actually want to spy on John’s sex life, he wanted to treat him like some kind of precious piece of glass that was going to shatter as soon as he put skates on. Well, in fairness to Mike, John had tended to do that before leaving for the Olympics. 

“I’m not stressed out about the practice,” John said, calmly. “I’ve been skating better lately.”

Mike gave him a look. “You weren’t supposed to be skating at all.”

John gave him an answering look. “Did you think that was really going to happen?” 

“Well. I’m just saying. We’re all happy you’re here, you’re one of the best left wings in the game, and we’re going to win gold.”

“Are you giving me a pep talk?”

“I’m giving you a pep talk.”

“I’m moving out,” said John. 

“Come on, the pep talk wasn’t that bad.”

“It wasn’t. But I’m serious. You get the room to yourself.”

“And where will you be?” asked Mike, sounding genuinely confused. 

John took a deep breath. “I will be at the British figure skating house.”

“The British figure skating house?”

“With Sherlock Holmes.”

“Wait, _Sherlock Holmes_ is your mystery man?”

“Shout that a little louder, why don’t you?” remarked John, dryly. 

“It’s just… _Sherlock Holmes. Seriously_?”

“Seriously.”

Mike just stared at him, blinking. 

“He’s _nice_ ,” John said, defensively. 

“Is he?” asked Mike, sounding perplexed. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “If I wasn’t married, I’d find myself an Olympic fling, too.” 

John disappeared into the bathroom, gathering up toiletries to bring to Sherlock’s, and also conveniently escaping from Mike’s scrutiny while he tried to consider whether this was just an easy Olympic fling or whether he was in over his head here. He came back out and threw some toiletries into his bag. 

Mike said, “If you get sick of him, you can come back. It’s not like I was annoyed that we were roommates or anything.”

It was on the tip of John’s tongue to say, _I’m not going to get sick of him_. And then realized that, in his head, he kind of meant, _I’m never going to get sick of him_. And yes, this was all very quick but John had never experienced anything that felt so right. 

***

Sherlock couldn’t be bothered to deal with the zoo that the ice was going to be with the team competition starting that night. He didn’t need that sort of practice anyway. He practiced on land, in the blessedly empty house once everyone had left. He sat and listened to both routines and visualized them and hated both of them, frankly. But it didn’t matter. The long program, even if it was to Swan Lake, was a solid and impressive program, an old stalwart that he knew he could skate well. He’d tweaked the Wagner short program enough so it would give him a shot. Not the best shot. He needed to be leading after the long program, and he needed to skate everything perfectly, and he needed Moriarty to make a mistake. He considered Moriarty his main rival. Yes, there were other young skaters who had been beating him consistently, but he hadn’t been paying attention to them and he still considered them beneath his notice. It was only Moriarty, in Sherlock’s judgment, who could beat him if he skated his best. 

Which was what was terrifying to Sherlock. He could skate his absolute best and still lose at this Olympics. The best he’d ever been, and Moriarty might still be better. 

Sherlock was lying on his back on the sofa, eyes closed, listening to the Wagner and twirling his hands in time with the program he would be skating. He heard Lestrade enter the house but pretended he didn’t, because Lestrade was annoying. 

Lestrade took one of Sherlock’s earbuds out of his ears and said, pleasantly, “Hello.”

Sherlock glared at him. “I’m busy.”

“I can see that,” said Lestrade and sat. “Not practicing today.”

“I’m practicing mentally,” said Sherlock. 

“I didn’t think you’d go near the rink today anyways,” agreed Lestrade. 

“I just didn’t feel like it,” said Sherlock, hearing an accusation of cowardice in Lestrade’s words. 

“It’s fine. I think it’s a wise choice. You need the mental space.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” demanded Sherlock. 

“Sherlock,” said Lestrade. “I’m agreeing with you on all of this. I’m not fighting with you.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Lestrade. 

“I wish you wouldn’t consider me your archenemy,” said Lestrade. “My job is to _help_ you.”

“My brother is my archenemy,” said Sherlock. “You’re just a minion.” 

“Right,” said Lestrade, sounding weary. 

“And you don’t think I can win gold. So, actually, you’re not helping very much.” 

Lestrade sighed. 

Sherlock closed his eyes and said, “You can go.”

“I didn’t even get around to the reason for my visit.”

“I thought it was your usual reason: to be as annoying as possible.”

“Anderson and Donovan told me the most interesting tale today,” remarked Lestrade. 

Anderson and Donovan had been part of the group in the lounge when John had exited that morning. Pairs skaters were so bloody gossipy, thought Sherlock. Sherlock said, affecting boredom, “Did they?”

“So that’s what the Opening Ceremony thing was about, huh? This is a new development,” remarked Lestrade. “I didn’t know you did…that.”

Sherlock gave him a withering glare. Because if Lestrade thought they were having a conversation about this, Lestrade was an even bigger idiot than Sherlock usually thought. “It’s none of your business.” 

“ _You’re_ my business.”

“I’m really not. I’m a very old skater who doesn’t need coaching anymore. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Right, but you need baby-sitting,” said Lestrade, sounding amused, “or is John Watson going to take care of that for me, too?”

“Go away _now_ ,” said Sherlock, and rolled over to present Lestrade with his back. 

“Well, I am looking forward to meeting him,” said Lestrade, as he left. 

Which left Sherlock to contemplate that horrifying possibility. _Everyone_ was going to want to meet John. This was awful. Lestrade was going to tell Mycroft who was going to tell their parents. Sherlock decided he might murder Anderson and Donovan when they got back. He could do it and not get caught. Maybe he’d frame someone for it. That would be fun. 

Although John probably wouldn’t approve. Sherlock sighed. He’d known he wasn’t going to be able to keep John secret. He wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ to keep John secret. John was all things amazing and remarkable and he wanted everyone to know about John, but at the same time he felt like the only thing keeping John with him was that John didn’t know enough about him yet to realize he should be with someone much better. 

John Watson had made his life exhausting. Deliciously exhausting, though. And nice to have something to focus on that wasn’t Moriarty or gold medals. Or a good murder. 

Eventually his phone vibrated, and Sherlock fished for it. It was John, and Sherlock knew that he grinned foolishly but luckily there was no one at the house to make fun of him. 

_Practice done. Plans for the evening?_

Sherlock texted back. _None. Come at once if convenient. –SH_

He considered, then: _If inconvenient, come anyway. –SH_

And then, because possibly John wouldn’t have realized how serious Sherlock was: _Bring your belongings. –SH_

John texted back after a few minutes. _On my way._

Sherlock’s heart rate increased. Curious. Anticipation, he supposed. Chemical explanations for the sudden surge of joy. Endorphins, he thought. His body preparing for events to come. Yes. Apparently the mere thought of John triggered biological reactions in him. 

Then his phone buzzed again. He looked at it. _Why do you sign your texts?_

Sherlock smiled. His fingers danced over his phone and before he knew it they had typed _I love you_. Sherlock stared at the text, blinked twice, and quickly deleted it, shocked that he had even typed it out. He must have lost his mind, he must have… 

Sherlock put his phone down and considered it logically. He had never met anyone who had interested him the way John did. No, “interest” was too mild a word. Captivated him. He had never met anyone whose presence he craved the way he craved John’s. He didn’t just tolerate him, he…loved him. Yes, that seemed…sensible. The only conclusion he could reach. And it didn’t bother him that he’d known him such a short period of time. He had loved him from the very first night, when he had invited him to share the ice with him, if he was going to be honest about it. And that made perfect sense, he seldom needed longer than that to make up his mind about somebody. 

John walked in whilst he was still musing about all of these things. “Are you just sitting in the dark doing nothing?” John asked, amused, and turned the light on. 

Sherlock blinked up at him, realizing that it had gone dark around him whilst he’d been sitting there. “Yes,” he said, truthfully. 

John walked over to him, smiling his gentle John Watson smile, as opposed to all of the other types of John Watson smiles he had. John looked pleased to see him. John leaned over and kissed him in greeting, a soft press of lips, a quiet smoothing of his hand over Sherlock’s head to cup him into place for the kiss. Then he drew back, just a little bit, still smiling, and said, “Hello,” and rubbed his nose against Sherlock’s. 

Sherlock stared at him and wanted to say, _I love you, you know that, right? I think you must if you come in here and greet me this way_. Instead he said, “Hello.”

John smiled again and kissed the tip of Sherlock’s nose before straightening. “Is there any food here, or do I have to, horror of horrors, make a run to the cafeteria?” John wandered into the kitchen. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock, disappointed with himself. “I should have realized you’d want to eat.”

“No,” said John, “I could have stopped myself, I just…didn’t.”

Sherlock read between John’s lines. Because he’d been eager to come over. Good. Sherlock was pleased with that. 

“What did you have to eat?” John appeared back in the room. 

“Oh, nothing,” said Sherlock, negligently. 

“Nothing?” repeated John, raising his eyebrows. 

“I don’t really eat,” Sherlock said, by way of reassuring him. 

“Sherlock. You’re an athlete preparing for competition. You have to eat.”

“Eating’s boring,” said Sherlock. Which was true. “Not like _you_ ,” said Sherlock. Which was also true. Sherlock reached out, taking John’s hand and tugging him over. “You’re very interesting,” Sherlock told him. 

“Mmm, and you’re hoping to distract me,” remarked John, but allow himself to be kissed, to be pulled halfway onto the sofa, awkwardly. 

The awkwardness didn’t matter. By the time John drew away, he’d managed to get Sherlock completely underneath him and their clothing was increasingly rumpled with impatience. 

Sherlock hooked a hand into John’s collar to try to pull him back in. 

John kissed him just briefly. “How long do you think I’ve been kissing you for?”

“Not long enough,” said Sherlock, scientifically, and stretched luxuriously underneath John, enjoying every inch of the delicious friction of him. 

“I am starving,” John said. 

“Mm-hmm,” Sherlock agreed, and lifted his head to capture John’s earlobe. 

“For _food_ ,” John clarified. “And so are you.” John moved firmly, rolling off the sofa. 

Sherlock groaned extravagantly but John was heartless and unmoved and pulled him off of the sofa and then pushed him out of the door. 

Since they weren’t going to snog, Sherlock supposed they should talk. “Your practice went well,” he noted, as they walked. 

“Oh, yeah? Do you think so?”

“I know so.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I deduced it. Admittedly it didn’t take much. You came home in a very good mood, and you wouldn’t have if practice had gone poorly.”

“Maybe I was just pleased to see you,” suggested John. 

Sherlock considered, then shook his head. “It wouldn’t have been enough to fully counteract a bad practice. It might have made you less despondent, but not cheerful, as you were.”

John shook his head a little bit and huffed amusement, which sent a little puff of condensed breath into the air. Sherlock desperately wanted to reach out and take his hand but thought that might be taking things too far. He wished he felt on better footing with John, more assured of what would be acceptable to do. 

John said, “Well, you’re right, and practice went well. Very well, actually. I ran every drill without issue.” 

“Told you,” said Sherlock, simply. 

“I’m fine with you being smug if it will continue to result in practices like that.”

“ _You’re_ the reason for the practice,” Sherlock pointed out. “You’re foolish enough to underestimate yourself.”

“I suppose it’s a good thing I have you then, isn’t it?” 

Sherlock paused. Then he decided that it was perfectly all right to say, “Yes. Yes, it is.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Sherlock ate only a bit. John frowned at him, which caused Sherlock to eat a few more bites, but still. John thought they were going to have to work on whatever Sherlock’s appalling lack of eating habits seemed to be. 

The skating house was still empty when they got back, and John realized it abruptly. “Oh. They’re all off competing.”

“They are,” Sherlock agreed. 

“Did you want to watch?”

The question seemed to give Sherlock pause. 

John said, “We don’t have to.”

“No,” said Sherlock. “It’s fine. I should be scouting the competition.” 

They settled on the sofa together, John ignoring the fact that he was sore everywhere, because it had been a long time since he’d practiced so strenuously. Sherlock kept up a running commentary for his benefit, mostly a negative one. They caught the end of the pairs competition, Sherlock being snide about Anderson and Donovan, who apparently were on-again-off-again-on-again. He dissected the male figure skaters closely and voraciously, which John would have expected, including the male skater that Great Britain was using in the team, a kid called Dimmock who Sherlock said was “promising, if he would listen to me more.” 

Sherlock didn’t fall silent until Moriarty started skating, and then he was silent the entirety of the program. John didn’t even think he was breathing. John watched him out of the corner of his eye, unnerved by Sherlock’s stillness. The program ended, and the commentators were gushing, full of the belief that Moriarty was going to take home the gold, that there was no one in the field to challenge him. 

Sherlock stayed quiet. 

John said, “Sherlock?” as commercials started on the television. 

“Do you know him?” Sherlock asked, not looking away from the television. 

“Not at all,” John said, honestly. 

“He’s American.” 

“I know, but I don’t know all of the American athletes.” 

Sherlock nodded and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, clearly thinking hard. 

John, after a moment, turned the television off. 

Sherlock, startled, looked at him. 

“Come on,” John said. 

“What? Where?”

“You’re going to practice.”

“There’s a competition going on, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I have noticed. But I know for a fact that you can use the hockey training venue right now. And you need to practice. Did you practice today?”

Sherlock hesitated. “I practiced mentally.”

“I think you’ll feel better if you’re out on the ice, being proactive about Moriarty.”

“Who says I care about Moriarty?”

“He’s the favorite to win. I just heard them say that. And you want to win gold. So he’s who you have to go through, isn’t he? So come on. Let’s work on your quad sumchum jump thing.”

“It’s a Salchow,” Sherlock corrected. 

“Great,” John grinned at him. “Come show me it.” 

***

John’s objective had been to get Sherlock out of his own head, and also to be out of the house when the rest of the team showed up. He sensed the drama that might happen when they came back, anticipated sulkiness from Sherlock, and wished to head that off. The hockey training venue wasn’t perfect but it was something. 

Sherlock showed off and broke them into the venue. They changed into skates together, Sherlock frowning at John because they’d had a disagreement over whether John should be on the ice again after practicing all day. John said he wasn’t going to do anything, and, indeed, he ended up leaning on the boards while Sherlock skated around the ice. Sherlock looked like he was thinking hard, and John wondered if he was imagining his music or if he was just replaying Moriarty’s program over in his head. 

Then Sherlock started to really skate, picking up speed. He launched into a jump, which he landed cleanly, and then he started a series of fancy footwork, moving fast, one-footed, front to back and front again. 

“This ice is _hard_ ,” he told John as he passed by him, and then he drifted into a spin. John watched as he gained speed the longer he went, which seemed impossible to John, and then he stopped, seemingly not the least bit dizzy, and went for more footwork over the ice. And more, and more. From one end of the rink to the other, over and over again. He seemed increasingly frustrated, and finally John decided it was time to step in. 

“Tell me what you’re doing,” he called, as Sherlock pulled up at one end of the rink with a slicing sound across the ice. 

“I’m _practicing_ ,” Sherlock retorted. “Didn’t you tell me to?”

“Right, but not spins or jumps tonight.”

“It’s footwork,” Sherlock said, now starting it up again. “I’m a better spinner than Moriarty, and I can out-jump him if I have to. But his footwork was improved tonight, and I didn’t expect that. Normally Moriarty is so smug that he forgets the small things. He thinks he can just dazzle everyone with being _clever_.”

John lifted his eyebrows and said, “Oh, is that what he thinks?” but refrained from pointing out the obvious similarity to Sherlock; he didn’t think Sherlock noticed it at all. 

“I haven’t been working on footwork, I normally can do footwork without thinking, but I need every point,” Sherlock continued, still skating. He was skating carefully, and it looked graceful, but John knew he was working very hard at it because John could hear his puffs of breath as he passed, see the sweat that had broken out on his skin. 

Sherlock seemed better though, less frustrated with himself, was frowning less as he skated. John thought to keep him talking. “Tell me how it’s judged.”

“The edges,” Sherlock said. “I need to work on my edges. They need to be clean and sharp and precise. It’s all about edges, and the tiniest mistake…” Sherlock trailed off into a spin, and then another, and then another, and then skated over to where John was standing. John handed him water without a word, and Sherlock took a sip, and then he said, “His program is bloody good. Damn it.” 

“You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know why you think that.”

“Because I’ve seen you skate so beautifully you made me cry, and surely that’s worth something.”

Sherlock snorted. “I think you’re biased.”

“Of course I am. But that’s all right. You were biased in favor of me before. Sometimes you need someone to be biased toward you.” John nudged his shoulder against Sherlock. 

“I wasn’t biased toward you. I knew you could do it and you have.”

“And I’ll be telling you that in a few days when you have a gold medal.”

“I barely have enough points, John.”

“But do you have enough points?”

“Barely.”

“But do you have enough, yes or no?”

Sherlock paused. “Yes.”

“There you go.” John let a beat go by. “Now explain to me what you’re talking about with points.” 

Sherlock laughed. And he did explain about the points: that each program was built with a specific number of points you could get if you skated all of it perfectly with no deductions. So Sherlock knew, before he even stepped out on the ice, whether he had a chance if he and Moriarty both skated perfectly. He did, but just barely, John gathered, and only because he’d been changing his programs in secret, during his middle-of-the-night practices. 

When they got back to the house, Irene Adler and Anderson and Donovan were in the living room, deep into a few bottles of wine, as far as John could tell. 

“Where have the two of you been?” Irene asked. 

Sherlock said, shortly, “Sight-seeing,” and stalked through the living room and upstairs. 

John went to follow him, except that Donovan—John had to find out her first name—said, “Hockey player, huh?”

John hesitated, then decided there was no need to be rude just because Sherlock was. “Yes,” he said, turning back with a quick smile, hoping that would be the end of the conversation. 

“You should get a new hobby, you know,” said Donovan, and poured herself more wine. 

“Well, it’s more than a hobby,” John said, confused. 

“I don’t mean hockey. I mean _him_.” Donovan nodded toward where Sherlock had disappeared upstairs. 

John blinked and now turned toward her fully. “What?” he asked flatly. 

“Fishing, maybe,” Donovan said. “He’s a freak, you know.” 

“He isn’t a freak,” Irene said, and then, before John could thank her for coming to Sherlock’s defense, continued, “He’s damaged, delusional, and has a god complex.” 

“He’s just a sociopath,” said Anderson, and gulped at his wine. 

John stood there and stared at them and suddenly realized why Sherlock had wanted to hide John from these people. Because they were _terrible_ people. And they were _wrong_. John thought of Sherlock skating to a single plaintive violin across a rink, so beautifully, so emotionally, with so much heart and naked vulnerability, so much _humanness_ , and these people were entirely wrong. Sherlock had calmed down because he’d remembered that John had seen that program, and John saw why now. 

He considered, and then said, “Not only are all of you wrong, but he’s also really good in bed.” And then he went upstairs. 

Sherlock was in the shower when John walked in, so he stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes and didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he woke to Sherlock taking off his shoes. 

“Mmph,” he said, which was as coherent as he could get. 

“Should you shower before sleeping?” Sherlock asked, keeping his voice down. 

John reached for him, pulled him in, pressed his nose into his neck. He was damp from the shower and smelled fresh and clean and also like _Sherlock_ , and John sighed happily and wrapped his arms more firmly around him. 

“John,” Sherlock mumbled against him. 

“’m fine,” John managed. “Come to bed.”

“I’m trying to. Are you planning on sleeping in your clothing?”

“It’s fine,” John said. 

“It’s not. I know you’re sore from practice already. What can I do to make it better in the morning?”

John finally relented and blinked his eyes open. “How do you know I’m sore?”

“John, really, you appear to be impressed by the simplest, most obvious deductions.”

John looked up at Sherlock, smiled, and pushed his wet curls off his forehead. 

Sherlock countered by ruffling John’s hair. And then he said, “They’re just upset because they got knocked out of the team competition. What they said to you—”

“They’re idiots, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked at him for a moment. Then he smiled and put his head down, nuzzling against John’s neck, keeping his hands tight in John’s hair. 

John closed his eyes and thought that the weight of Sherlock on top of him was delicious, perfect, intoxicating. He said, after a few moments, “I thought you didn’t want me sleeping in my clothing.”

“I don’t,” Sherlock mumbled. 

“You need to move, then,” John pointed out the obvious. 

“In a minute,” Sherlock promised, and just breathed. 

***

Two days until the first hockey game of the Olympics for John, and three days until Sherlock’s first night of competition. They parted ways to go to separate practices. Sherlock seemed to be in a good mood as they got ready. He was relaying to John his strategy of lulling the rest of his competition by skating his weaker programs and not showing his hand about his improved points totals. 

John had no strategy. John’s strategy was to _get through_. It was the first time in a long time he’d been worked so hard on two consecutive days, and he was trying desperately to get his feet under him, to remember what ice felt like, and the stick in his hands, and that sense of where the puck was, and where it should go, and how to get it from Point A to Point B. As he walked to the venue, he felt like he was hopelessly behind the curve and was going to hold everybody back and should just bow out now and not force everyone to pretend like he was going to be of any value to the team. 

Sherlock would have been furious if he had known such thoughts were going through John’s head. John could hear him very clearly. And then John marveled a little bit that, in just a few days, Sherlock had become such a dominant voice in his brain. 

But maybe that was a good thing, John thought. Maybe he could focus on Sherlock’s voice in his head and he would be okay during the practice. 

He was greeted with good-natured teasing by the rest of the team, and he shrugged it off and tried not to blush to his ears. They all seemed to think he was a genius for having found himself an Olympic fling; John was worried that he was making a huge mistake because to him it was so much _more_ than an Olympic fling. 

Practice went well. It was mentally and physically exhausting, and John made a string of tiny, frustrating mistakes, but he kept hearing Sherlock in his head, kept seeing Sherlock do the same few steps of footwork over and over until he perfected it, and if Sherlock could do that, then John could do this. He focused harder and kept going, and his leg held up, and if he was tired at the end of the practice, it was a satisfied sort of tired. Things had felt like they were clicking. He felt like he was working well with the rest of the team, and he was starting to be able to sense the puck again. 

Maybe his Olympics really _were_ looking up, John thought, as he changed out of his skates. 

“We’re all going to have dinner together at the cafeteria,” said Mike to him. “It’s team-building. 6:30.”

“That’s perfect,” John said, because he suspected Sherlock was going to skate through dinner so he could avoid John pestering him about eating.

John had time until dinner, so he headed back to the skating house. Sherlock wouldn’t be there, but John thought he might relax a little bit. He’d worked himself hard and was looking forward to a nice, long, hot shower. He pulled out his cell phone and texted Sherlock: _Done with practice. Heading back. Having dinner with the team tonight._ He had just hit “send” when the voice spoke, in a casual and creepily sinister drawl that sent a shiver down John’s neck. 

“It doesn’t surprise me that the leg’s holding up. It was always psychosomatic.”

John looked to his left, confused. There was a man there, dressed in a USA training suit. But not a hockey player. No one who was on the hockey team. John squinted in the bright winter sunlight, trying to place him, because he seemed vaguely familiar. Short, with short, dark hair. Who _was_ he?

“Sorry?” John said. 

“Then again,” said the man, giving him a large, cold smile as he sauntered toward him, hands stuck in his pockets, “you’ve gone and fixed your head, haven’t you?”

John was on the verge of demanding who he was when he placed him. Moriarty. The American figure skater from the night before. The one Sherlock was so worried about. He had by now come right up to John, and John could see directly into his eyes, deep, dark, and _empty_. John disliked those eyes immediately. John disliked _him_. 

John was undecided about what he ought to do. He wanted to just walk away without a word, but that seemed rude. _Thanks_ seemed inappropriate, though. He found himself saying, “Nice job last night.”

Moriarty flashed him that chilling smile again. “Did you and Sherlock watch together? You know, I’ve been so wanting to meet you. Sherlock Holmes’s pet.” Moriarty’s eyes swept up and down him. “I thought you’d be…more. But you’re just a washed-up hockey player with a pity place on the team. Disappointing.”

John wanted to punch him. He didn’t, because the phone he was still holding in his hands vibrated with an incoming text. He glanced down at it. _Practice is boooooooring, come and kill me. –SH_ Sherlock, John thought. Sherlock didn’t need for there to be headlines that his new Olympic lover had punched his biggest rival. 

John took a deep breath and said, as lightly as he could manage, “Good luck with the rest of the team thing tonight.” 

He walked away and tried to ignore the fact of Moriarty’s eyes, so steadily on him. He texted Sherlock back, finding it grounding to talk to him, even if just electronically. _I’ll come and watch you if you like, but killing you is out of the question. I have too many plans for you tonight, and I can’t just fill Dimmock in for you the way the British figure skating team does._

John hoped he sounded light and frivolous and not at all like he’d just been insulted by a figure skater. 

There was a moment before Sherlock responded. _Yes, stop by. –SH_

***

Sherlock sent the text and then spent a moment staring at his phone, panicking. He had just asked John to come to the rink. _He had just asked John to come to the rink._ Where there were so many people. Press, and scouts, and _Lestrade_. 

_On my way_ , came John’s text, and Sherlock stared at it. 

“Oi! Sherlock!” shouted Lestrade behind him. “Stop flirting with your boyfriend and run through your footwork sequence.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Sherlock said, automatically, and texted John back. _Go to the athlete entrance. –SH_ He turned to Lestrade. “John is coming to watch the practice. Can you make sure he gets in?” He asked it haughtily, not inviting discussion. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lestrade’s eyebrows flicker upward, but he ignored it, skating off to a free portion of the ice, and then skating back to Lestrade. 

“Don’t bother him, either,” he said firmly.

Lestrade said nothing. Which was annoying. Sherlock skated back and tried to concentrate, but he was distracted by the possible mistake he’d just made in inviting John to the practice. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. He automatically started a footwork sequence, realized it was his secret new footwork sequence, re-started it, hoped people weren’t paying attention. It was a fairly sparse practice session anyways, and Moriarty wasn’t there. Sherlock supposed he was resting himself a bit after having competed the night before.

Sherlock went back to spins. He made sure to do a terrible job with his spinning. He wanted the scouting reports on him to keep him under the radar, to view him as being completely unimpressive. 

“Can we have a chat?” Lestrade asked, when he skated over for some water and a break. 

“No,” said Sherlock. 

“First, I’ve never seen your spins so jerky.”

“That’s on purpose.”

“I assumed. But I don’t want you to forget how to do, you know, _nice_ spins.” 

“I won’t,” Sherlock promised, and refrained from telling Lestrade anything about the middle of the night practices. They were typical of him, and he thought Lestrade suspected he was still doing them, but he also thought that maybe Lestrade was hoping the presence of John meant he was spending his nights at home. Because Lestrade thought Sherlock was delusional to be trying for this gold in the first place. 

He glanced up into the crowd and spotted John, sitting in the middle of the sea of spectators. John spotted him looking and gave a small wave. He looked tense. 

Sherlock frowned and turned to Lestrade. “What did you say to him?”

“Hmm? Who?”

Why was he surrounded by idiots? “ _John_.”

“Oh, is he here? I didn’t say anything to him. I didn’t even see him, just told security to let him in.” Lestrade followed Sherlock’s gaze to John. “He’s nicer-looking in person. Pictures don’t do him justice.”

“Stop talking about him, stop _thinking_ about him, stop thinking altogether, it’s distracting.”

Lestrade had the nerve to smile, as if he thought the whole thing was amusing. “Do you want to run through your program? It’s your turn, they’ll clear the ice for you.”

Sherlock shook his head. 

“Sherlock—” Lestrade began. 

“Look, what does it matter?” Sherlock snapped. “You don’t expect me to medal here, so what does it matter how I practice or what I look like?”

“I already told you, I want you to go out on _your terms_. I want you to be proud of—”

“I’m going to win a bloody gold medal here, Lestrade,” Sherlock announced firmly and then skated away and launched into a jump that got a little gasp of appreciation from the crowd. He landed it too hard, but he didn’t even care at the moment. 

He skated until Lestrade threw up his hands a bit and went to bother Anderson and Donovan. Then Sherlock skated over to the boards and took a long drink, and then he looked back up into the crowd. John was still there, still watching. He smiled a little at Sherlock, looking less tense than he had. 

Sherlock felt better. And also tired. He’d had enough of this fake practice, he thought, and glanced at his watch, wondering what time John’s dinner was. Well, John was here, he might as well ask him. He turned back to the crowd and waved John down. 

John raised his eyebrows and then wended his way down, having to shove through people to get there. 

“Hey,” he said as he reached him. 

“Hello,” said Sherlock. “What time is your dinner?”

“6:30. And I wanted to take a shower before going.”

Sherlock regarded him critically. He looked weary and achy. “You should have taken one already.”

“You asked me to come here.”

Sherlock couldn’t deny that, and it was nice to have him there. “What did Lestrade say to you?”

John blinked, looking surprised. “Lestrade? Your coach?”

“Yes—”

And then, just like that, annoyingly, Lestrade arrived. “You must be John Watson,” he said effusively, offering his hand. “I have so been looking forward to meeting you.”

“Oh,” said John, shaking his hand. “Thanks.” John seemed bemused, like he didn’t know why he was such a great honor to meet. John was always selling himself short, Sherlock thought. 

And John looked uncertain, off-balance. He really had never met Lestrade before. Which meant Lestrade couldn’t have said something to upset him when he first got there. Which meant that something else had to have upset him. But what? Sherlock narrowed his eyes at John. He didn’t think it had been his practice. 

And John confirmed that for him. Lestrade said, “How’s the hockey going?” and John said, “Good,” with a very genuine smile of relief. 

So the hockey was going well, Sherlock thought. It wasn’t the hockey. It was something else. And now whatever it might have been nagged at him. Sherlock didn’t like for there to be things that he didn’t know. 

“Stop talking to John,” Sherlock ordered abruptly. “John and I are leaving.”

John looked at him in amusement. “Are we?”

“Yes. I’ve had enough skating today. Doesn’t matter, anyway, since I’m not going to win a medal.” Sherlock sent Lestrade a meaningful look. 

Lestrade sighed and said, “Sherlock—”

“Give me ten minutes and meet me outside,” Sherlock told John, and then turned and skated away.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have been so incredibly patient for this, for which I thank you. It should be published weekly from hereon out.

Chapter Eight 

Sherlock met him dressed in the charcoal wool coat he’d worn the night they’d gone to dinner. John wondered if Sherlock had ever worn any of the team training clothes he must have been provided with. 

And John immediately asked the question he’d been dying to ask. “What was all that about?”

Sherlock started walking immediately, and John followed him. He was making a habit of it. “Practice,” Sherlock replied. 

John bit at the impulse to smile, because Sherlock could be so childish and adorable sometimes. “No, the thing about not winning a medal.”

“Lestrade doesn’t think I can win,” Sherlock said. 

“Well, if all he’s seen is the way you skated just now, I can see why he thinks that,” remarked John. 

Sherlock stopped walking and looked down at him thoughtfully. “Did you think I skated differently?”

“I barely recognized you out there,” said John, honestly. “You were an entirely different skater.”

“Good. And you’re an idiot about figure-skating, so that’s a very good thing.” 

“So you clearly don’t like Lestrade.”

“Brilliant deduction,” drawled Sherlock and resumed walking. 

“How come?” asked John. 

“Do you like your coach?” Sherlock asked. 

“Sholto?” John shrugged. “Yeah. He’s not full of what you might call ‘social graces,’ but he’s a nice guy. I mean, he knows what he’s doing and I trust him. He’s been through a lot, he’s seen a lot, so I feel like you should listen to people like that. I mean, I respect him a lot. And yeah, I guess I like him.” 

Sherlock stopped walking again. Now the gaze he turned on John was narrow and John realized he’d been babbling a bit. “Do I need to be jealous?”

John couldn’t help the laugh. “Of _Sholto_? No.” 

“Hmm,” remarked Sherlock, as if he wasn’t quite sure of that, but he kept walking anyway. “Well, I don’t like Lestrade. We don’t get along.”

“Why not?” 

“He’s an idiot.”

“Then why don’t you get a new coach?”

“Because Lestrade is the best of a bad lot. And, according to my brother, he’s the only person who can coach me without punching me on an hourly basis. I’m sure it doesn’t help that he’s shagging my brother, but they think I don’t know that because _they_ are idiots.” 

John blinked. “Your coach is sleeping with your brother?”

“Indeed,” Sherlock sighed, as if long-suffering. 

“Well, at least I know Sholto’s not sleeping with my sister. Since she’s a lesbian.” 

“Also an alcoholic who recently broke up with her wife,” remarked Sherlock casually. 

John gaped at him. He couldn’t help it. “How did you know _that_?”

Sherlock whirled on him suddenly, catching him off-guard, his gaze very tight on him. “Are you all right?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” John said, forcing himself to believe it as he said it. He’d read somewhere that that was the key to a good lie. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” said Sherlock firmly. “I can see that you’re not. Don’t try to trick me. It doesn’t work.”

“Don’t threaten me,” John said more sharply than he’d intended. But, damn it, he’d had enough scary things said to him today. 

“I’m not,” said Sherlock, slowly, looking at John and clearly working things out. Stupid brain, thought John, as Sherlock said, “But someone else did. You’ve been threatened today. You’ve had enough with threatening today. Who was it?”

“No one threatened me, Sherlock,” John said, because it was technically true. Moriarty hadn’t threatened him. He’d just creeped him the hell out. 

“Someone did something to you,” insisted Sherlock. “You had a good practice, but you were tense by the time I saw you at the arena. Did the other hockey players—”

“Jesus, now I believe you that solving crimes is your hobby,” remarked John, feeling a little battered by the constant sharpness of Sherlock’s gaze and the tumbling force of his questions and observations. Sherlock was going to figure out that Moriarty had approached him, and John decidedly did not want that. He did not want Sherlock to have to think of anything but winning gold, which he was already worried enough about. “Stop interrogating me,” John said. 

“I’m not—”

“I’ve got to take a shower before dinner, my arm is killing me,” said John, and turned and firmly walked the rest of the way back to the skating house, Sherlock relegated to the position of following this time. 

***

Something had clearly happened to John, and John wasn’t telling him, and that was irritating. 

Mycroft would have told him that this was why you didn’t get involved, why caring wasn’t an advantage. Because Sherlock had a million important Olympian things to think of but he sat in his room and played the violin and thought about John Watson and how he would take anyone who had threatened John and kill him with an untraceable poison and then chop him into tiny pieces and then scatter him over several hundred miles, at least. 

He wondered if John had sensed that impulse in Sherlock and that was why he wasn’t telling Sherlock what had happened. Whatever it was, it was frustrating beyond belief. Sherlock brought his bow down sourly. No wonder Mycroft said not to get involved. 

And yet John wasn’t there at the moment, off eating dinner with his hockey team, and Sherlock missed him, longed for him, ached for him, craved him like the very best of drugs. Only this drug wouldn’t kill him. Most likely. If anything, Mycroft should be encouraging this particular drug, Sherlock thought. Mycroft should have gone out and got him John Watson much sooner. That would have saved them so much unnecessary drama. 

Sherlock decided that, on balance, he would get involved with John again. It wasn't even close. He'd do it again in a heartbeat. 

Sherlock decided that, actually, going after John Watson on that one crazy night when he’d thrown caution to the wind had been the best decision of his life. 

That settled that then. 

Sherlock lifted his violin and resumed playing and pondered John Watson. 

When John finally arrived back from dinner, he walked into the bedroom and said, “Christ, they are like running a gauntlet down there. No wonder you don’t like them.”

“Good dinner?” Sherlock asked, putting his violin away. 

“Don’t you know already?”

“Yes, but I thought you might appreciate my pretending not to for the sake of polite conversation.”

“By the way,” said John, waggling his finger at him as he stalked toward him, smiling. “You’re a liar.”

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow in inquiry. 

“You told me you could play ‘a bit.’ That was beautiful.”

Sherlock shrugged, vaguely embarrassed. Few people knew he could play the violin. He had never wanted it to be some sort of hollow fact rattled off about him by commentators. _He’s not only a world-class figure skater, he’s an accomplished violinist as well! A true Renaissance man!_ Only they’d say something stupid like, _A Renaissance man in every sense of the word_ , which wouldn’t mean anything but would take more time to say and that was the goal of commentators, in Sherlock’s experience. 

He looked up at John and said, “What happened today?”

John looked innocent. “I went to my practice, and then I went to _your_ practice, and then I went to dinner.”

He was dodging deliberately, thought Sherlock, with a brief frown. “What else?”

“I met your coach. Who’s shagging your brother. Oh, and I heard the skiers complaining about the quality of the snow on the mountain.” 

“John,” said Sherlock, irritated. 

And what John did then surprised him. He pulled him up out of the chair, roughly, stealing Sherlock’s breath away from him. “I am fine,” he said, his voice low and intense, and then he pressed Sherlock against the wall and kissed him. 

Sherlock tried to hold onto the thread of the conversation. He’d been asking John questions. Hadn’t he been asking John questions? It was so hard to remember when John kissed like that and touched like that and made the entire world _him, him, him. John, John, John_ , and Sherlock kissed back and tumbled onto the bed with him and let him make everything _magic_. Whatever unpleasantness may have happened that day diminished to nothingness, tucked behind the force that was John, the fire and ice combination of John. 

Afterward, John was sleepy and sated and curled against him, and Sherlock hated to disturb him by being persistent in his questions. 

He pressed his face into John’s hair and thought how it had been only days of acquaintance and yet he could not imagine a life without him. 

“You know if there were something wrong— _anything_ wrong—you could tell me,” murmured Sherlock. 

“Likewise,” responded John in a blurred mumble against Sherlock’s chest. 

***

In the morning, Sherlock let it go again. In the rush of getting ready, it no longer seemed pressing. John was in a good mood, anyways. He leaned up to steal kisses from Sherlock at every given opportunity during their morning routine. And Sherlock was mainly so shocked to have developed a morning routine with another human being that he was willing to believe that he’d imagined all of it. Admittedly, it wasn’t like him to imagine things, but maybe this whole situation with John was so unprecedented that it wasn’t unbelievable that he would be a bit off as a consequence. 

Except that Moriarty was at practice and said to him, after he’d finished a couple of fake spins, “I met your pet yesterday.”

And everything slotted into place, everything, all of it. Sherlock kept his head down, paying undue attention to his own skates because he didn’t want Moriarty to know that John had failed to mention it to him. Had, in fact, affirmatively kept it from him when pressed. 

“He’s sweet,” Moriarty continued. “I see why you keep him around.” 

Sherlock said nothing. Sherlock executed a three turn that allowed him to turn his back on Moriarty. 

“You’re getting attached,” said Moriarty, skating to keep up with him. “I can tell.”

Sherlock sped up, cleared enough space for himself, and threw himself into a triple axel. It was a poor decision. He was too keyed up to do it cleanly and two-footed the landing and couldn’t recover enough to keep his balance, hitting the ice hard. Bloody fantastic, he thought. That hadn’t been humiliating at all. 

Moriarty skated over to him as he pulled himself back up. And he said, “You know you won’t be able to keep him, right? People like us, we can’t keep ordinary people like him. He’s a pressure point, Sherlock. A very big one. Even now, he’s in your head, isn’t he? You’re more worried about poor John Watson and that nagging shoulder injury and that psychosomatic limp. You’re so worried about John Watson that you can’t even do a triple axel.” Moriarty smiled at him as he skated backwards away from him. “Lovely chatting,” he said. 

Sherlock skated over to where Lestrade was standing by the boards. 

“You all right?” Lestrade asked. “That was a nasty tumble—”

“I’m done,” Sherlock said, almost knocking Lestrade over in his haste to vacate the ice. 

“What?” Lestrade called after him, confused. 

Sherlock didn’t bother to answer. He stalked back to the changing rooms, pulling off his skates as quickly as possible, desperate that no one stop him and talk to him any further. Because the worst thing was that Moriarty was _right_. Sherlock wanted gold, he did, he wanted it desperately, but he hadn’t practiced the night before because John had been in his bed and that had seemed more important. Everything about John just _seemed more important_. And John had _lied_ to him, which had left Sherlock exposed to Moriarty’s little mind game, and then he had bloody fallen on the sodding triple axel like an idiot, and Sherlock wanted people to underestimate him but he didn’t want to look like a laughingstock. 

Sherlock wanted his gold medal, he'd always wanted his gold medal, and he'd never got his gold medal. Why did he think it would be different with John? Moriarty was right: John was going to leave eventually. Sherlock wanted John, but he didn’t get the things he wanted, no matter what he did, wasn’t that the lesson of the Olympics? 

So now he’d put his medal in jeopardy to chase after John, who he was never going to get to keep. 

He didn’t pause for breath or to figure out where he was going. He just _walked_ , as swiftly as possible without breaking into a run, away from the venue. 

***

For the second consecutive practice, a creepy man pulled John aside as he exited, and John had really had quite enough of all that. 

This particular man was older than Moriarty, and he was dressed in a suit complete with a waistcoat and a watch chain. John thought the whole outfit was completely ridiculous in the Olympic Village, where everyone else was running around in tracksuits. 

“John Watson?” he said very formally. 

The accent was British, and anyway the only people who ever seemed to bother him these days were Sherlock-related. 

John sighed and said, “And what is it that _you_ want? I’ve had quite enough of being threatened lately, thanks.”

The man blinked and looked down his sharp nose at him. “You don’t seem very frightened.”

“Are you trying to be frightening?” asked John calmly. 

“If you’ve been threatened—”

“It hasn’t been _real_ threatening. I was exaggerating. Who the hell are you anyway?”

“Sherlock would tell you I’m his archenemy.”

“How many of those does he _have_?” demanded John, because surely it got exhausting keeping track. 

The man looked at John with mild interest, a sort of flare of curiosity. “Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?”

“My association,” John repeated flatly. He supposed it was nice of this guy to give it a name, at least, as John had no idea what to call it. He also had no idea how long it was going to go on for. He had no idea what Sherlock was thinking and didn’t want to push him at the moment. It would be terrible and awkward to force a confrontation right now, and it would deprive him of spending the rest of the Olympics with Sherlock. He was willing to let everything stay up in the air for a little while, undefined, rather than force it to shatter. Because if John had his way, he thought he might continue his “association” with Sherlock Holmes forever. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s any of your business,” he decided, finally, because that was most definitely true, no matter what the status of the association was. 

“It could be,” said the man. 

“It really couldn’t,” said John and started walking. 

The man fell into step beside him. “He’s a curious man to have decided to trust, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Who says I trust him?” retorted John, although it was true. He trusted him ridiculously, and he didn’t want to hear someone else point it out. 

“And how is his training going?” 

John stopped walking, turning back to the man with narrowed eyes. “Why would I tell you that?”

The man looked bored. “Oh, I’m sorry, should I have offered you money first? How much would you consider an appropriate bribe?”

John lifted his eyebrows now. “A bribe? Are you serious?”

“Name your price.”

“No price. You’re insane,” John bit out and started walking again. 

“You’re very loyal very quickly,” the man called to him. 

John didn’t even bother to dignify that with an answer. 

***

Sherlock was not at the skating house when John got back there, which was irritating because it wasn’t like he could hang out with the other inhabitants of the house. And, anyway, he wanted to talk to Sherlock because maybe it was time to start warning him that he apparently had multiple enemies to watch out for, not just Moriarty. 

He texted Sherlock a quick _Where are you?_ and then fell backward onto the bed, considering the craziness of the past couple of days. Were all figure skaters like this, or was it just Sherlock? 

The knock on the door was perfunctory, so that John because he had no time at all to react before the door was flung open by Lestrade. 

“Where’s Sherlock?” he demanded. 

John struggled to sit up on the bed, frowning. “Not here. I assumed he was practicing.”

“No, he fell and stalked off.”

“Fell?” John was momentarily alarmed. “Badly?”

“No, it was a silly, stupid fall and nothing’s hurt but his pride, but now he’s pulled one of his typical stunts. This is what he did before.”

“Before when?”

“Before. In his second Olympics. When he was so heavily favored and it all completely exploded around him. He disappeared and by the time he came back he’d started a drug habit.”

“A drug habit?” John echoed. 

“Yes. He hasn’t told you any of this? Of course he hasn’t told you any of this. You need to tell him that it’s silly to get himself fixated on the gold this way. He’s putting too much pressure on himself.”

John connected the dots. “Wait a second. You really, seriously don’t think he can win the gold?” John had assumed Sherlock had been exaggerating about that. That he was letting his distaste for Lestrade color his view. Wasn’t Lestrade’s entire job to believe in the people he was coaching? 

“John. I _know_ he can’t. His programs flat-out don’t have enough points. All Moriarty has to do is skate clean and he’s got this won.”

“But Sherlock’s been fixing his programs. He’s got enough points to win.”

“He can’t skate up to Moriarty’s level. He _could_ have, eight years ago, four years ago even. He can’t match him now. And this delusion is going to kill him. He’s going to get his hopes up and be disappointed, and I can’t handle another drug habit. I can’t. Would you talk to him?” Lestrade was speaking to him sincerely, genuinely, with fear in his eyes. Lestrade _cared_ about Sherlock, that much was clear. Lestrade obviously thought believing in Sherlock was dangerous for him. 

And John had to admit that he didn’t actually know Sherlock well enough to judge whether that was true for himself.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Sherlock walked and walked and walked and walked, and when he finally stopped walking it was dark and he had to blink to reorient himself. He missed London, where he could have walked for hours like that and known every single stretch of pavement. He hated the Olympics. He _hated_ the Olympics. He had always hated the Olympics, and he had come out of some sense of misguided pride, some thought that he had one last shot and he would capitalize, and then he had met John and it had all seemed so marvelously, amazingly perfect. And it was all going to be marvelously, amazingly perfect, right up until the moment when John left, because of course John would. John would come to his senses. He had already started to be swayed by Moriarty’s arguments against him, or else why wouldn’t John have mentioned running into him? 

Sherlock finally looked at his phone. There were multiple texts from John and multiple missed calls. And it was late. Later than he had thought. He had lost track of time. He had lost track of _so_ much time. His entire career had passed by in the blink of an eye and he had made a mess of it. 

He trudged back in the direction of the skating house and was startled to run straight into John, stalking toward him. 

“Where the hell have you been?” John snapped. 

Sherlock blinked, and then felt answering anger settle hot in his blood. “Walking,” he retorted. 

“I have been texting and calling and texting and calling.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize I had to be at your beck and call,” Sherlock retorted. 

“I don’t care about that. I was _worried_ about you.”

“Worried about me?” Sherlock lifted his eyebrows. “Worried about me walking around in the sodding Olympic Village? I can’t get into trouble here, trust me, I’ve tried my hardest.”

“Look,” said John, and tore a hand through his hair. _Nervous?_ thought Sherlock, watching him closely. But why would he be nervous? “Lestrade stopped by and said you had a bad practice—”

“Said I had a bad practice?” Sherlock interrupted, annoyed. 

“Yes, and then he… You frightened me—”

Sherlock read between John’s lines. “He told you, didn’t he,” said Sherlock flatly. “About the drugs.”

John looked at him, his expression confirmation. “Sherlock,” he said helplessly. 

“I didn’t go off to find drugs,” Sherlock said, walking briskly toward the skating house. “Lestrade is so overdramatic. He gets that from my brother.”

“Maybe you’re putting too much pressure on yourself—”

Sherlock whirled suddenly, abruptly. “Putting pressure on myself,” he repeated. 

“Yes. You know it doesn’t matter, right? The medals. I mean, just being here is—”

“Are you going to tell me that just being here is reward enough?” Sherlock demanded. 

“Yes,” said John, setting his jaw stubbornly. “Because it is.”

“No, it’s not. There is no _point_ to being here without a medal. Only the idiots are happy to be here with no medal chances.”

“The idiots like me,” said John. 

“No,” said Sherlock, and then, reconsidering, “Yes. Because you sell yourself short. You shouldn’t be happy with anything less than a medal. That’s the problem with everyone. Everyone’s so _complacent_!”

John folded his arms and said, calmly, “Stop yelling at me. I’m on your side here.”

Sherlock stared at him in speechless astonishment for a moment. And then he said, incredulously, “No, you’re not.”

John blinked. “Yes, I am. Sherlock, I’m only thinking of—”

“You were the reason I had a terrible practice,” Sherlock accused. 

“Me? I—”

“Because I got to hear all about your little tete-a-tete with Moriarty. Ta ever so much for the heads-up on that one, John.” 

John at least looked a little abashed at that. “I didn’t think that—”

“I asked you and asked you and _asked_ you. I _knew_ that something was wrong. And you looked at me and you _lied_.”

John was silent for a moment. “I thought that—”

“Can’t you see what’s going on?” Sherlock shouted at him. “He is planting doubt in your head, and in Lestrade’s head, and in _my_ head, one little seed of doubt, and the next thing I know you’re telling me maybe it would be healthier to give up on medal chances, and everyone’s just going to roll over, and if I have to be the one person who’s standing up and on my side, I don’t care. I’m going to _win_ here. Otherwise there’s no point.”

John looked at him for a long, even moment. And then he said softly, “There can be another point.” 

Sherlock shook his head, feeling exhausted and frustrated and very alone, very attacked, very wounded and defensive. And very terrified of the hope of thinking that John wouldn’t leave. Because John _would_. That was how his life went. “I can’t, with that, right now. You’re my _pressure point_.” 

“What does that mean?” John asked. 

“Never mind. Never mind all of it,” said Sherlock, and walked away, heading away from the skating house. 

John didn’t follow. 

***

It was a bad argument, but John thought that had been a product of their moods. He had been worried about Sherlock and annoyed at him for making him worried, and he had started on the offensive and had immediately put Sherlock on the defensive. Sherlock would calm down, and he would come back, and they would have a rational discussion about all of this. 

John realized, as dawn crept into the room, that he really didn’t know Sherlock very well yet. Sherlock was clearly stubborn enough to stay out all night. 

And the longer John sat alone in Sherlock’s room and tried to plan what he was going to say to him, the worse he felt. He _had_ lied to Sherlock about Moriarty, had distracted him with sex, and he’d done it because he’d thought it had been for his own good, but he saw now that it had left Sherlock feeling exposed when Moriarty had used it to attack him. And Lestrade, he decided, was wrong. Sherlock didn’t need someone to be realistic with him about his gold-medal chances; Sherlock needed someone who was on his side. As far as John could tell from every encounter he’d had the past few days, no one was on Sherlock’s side, and he _needed_ that. 

With the dawn, John texted Sherlock. _Please come home_. He got no response, so he texted more. _I’m sorry_. Then he showered and shaved and dressed. Still no response. _I’m sorry sorry sorry_. Nothing. 

Damn it. 

John went off to breakfast and tried to take deep breaths. Because he had a game that day. His first game on Olympic ice, his first hockey game in weeks, and he had stayed up all night upset over a lovers’ quarrel. Maybe Sherlock was right in the proclamation he’d seemed to make at the end of the argument. _I can’t, with that, right now_ , Sherlock had said, and maybe, to win gold, you _couldn’t_. 

John was torn between feeling hollow at the thought of being without Sherlock and feeling pathetic for so quickly putting Sherlock above a dream he’d had his whole life. 

He felt even more pathetic when he sat in the changing room before going out to the ice, the rest of the team getting ready for the game around him, and texted and texted and texted Sherlock. 

_I didn’t want to put this in a text, but I also don’t want to go all day without saying it._

_I’m sorry. I should have told you about Moriarty._

_And I shouldn’t have doubted you. I don’t doubt you. I know you can win gold._

_I’m on your side._

John paused, then added: _Also, you’re a very attractive swan._   
“Ready?” Mike asked him. He looked worried, as if he thought John was going to crumple on the ice. 

John was worried he _was_ going to crumple on the ice. But he managed a smile and said, “Yes. Absolutely. I’ve been ready my whole life.” 

They skated out to cheers and camera flashes, and it should have been just another hockey game in his life, but it was Olympic hockey and the feeling in the pit of his stomach was much denser than it usually was, the voice in the back of his head much louder than it usually was. John almost stumbled on his way off the ice and to the bench and he felt like every eye turned to him, assessing whether he was about to fall over. He wanted to stand on the bench and shout, _I’m fine!_ except he was worried he wasn’t. 

And that was when he saw Sherlock. He was standing in the aisle of seats that was closest to the bench, and he was clearly having a disagreement with security over whether or not he was allowed to be there. 

John didn’t care. John practically launched himself across the bench toward him. “Sherlock!” he shouted. 

Sherlock glanced at him, said to the security guard, “See? I told you. Give us two minutes,” and then turned back to John. “Get out of your own head,” he said firmly. 

John blinked at him. “What?”

“You think too much, that’s when you fall to pieces. Trust your instincts, you’re good at this game, let yourself be good at it.”

John couldn’t even process what he was saying. He gasped, “You got my texts.” 

Sherlock looked quizzical. “What? No. I haven’t been—”

“Then why are you here?”

Sherlock looked even _more_ quizzical. “For you. It’s your first game, did you think I’d miss it?”

John wanted to point out that they’d been fighting and he’d thought that, yes, Sherlock would definitely miss it. But he was too happy to see him. He found himself just saying, “I’m sorry.” 

“Remember what I said about you,” Sherlock said, ignoring the apology, and tipped his head closer to John. “You like this game. Underneath your boring jumpers, you thrive on the danger of this, on the adrenaline of it. Don’t be scared, and don’t be worried. This is what you’ve been looking for. Don’t think, just enjoy it.”

John nodded, looking up at him, and then Sherlock straightened and said to the guard, “See? All done.” And then he walked away. 

John watched him, decided he didn't really know what to make of him, and turned back to the bench. He forced his mind blank, into nothing. He took a deep breath and visualized everything in his head. 

And then he played a hockey game. 

***

Sherlock sat in the stands and missed the first few minutes of his first hockey game because he was scrolling through John’s texts. _Also, you’re a very attractive swan._

Sherlock read it and felt terrible. Clearly John had thought he wasn’t going to come to his game. Sherlock had never even considered not coming to the game. They’d quarreled, yes, but that didn’t mean that Sherlock wasn’t going to make sure, no matter what, that John had the best Olympics ever. Sherlock couldn’t resist giving John the best of everything, of course. 

And, anyways, John had merely spoken sense. It _was_ unlikely he was going to medal here, and he _had_ developed a drug habit after failing to medal at another Olympics. John had finally come to his senses, and it was Sherlock’s fault for not having braced himself for that properly, which had been foolish of him. He knew that it had had to be coming, after all. It was too good to be true to expect that he would have tricked John forever; John was too clever for that. 

He hadn't meant to make John panic the way he clearly had. It hadn’t occurred to him that John _would_ panic. It hadn’t occurred to him that John would really still want him after everything. But apparently John did. Sherlock was used to dealing with evidence, and that’s what the evidence seemed to be telling him, improbably enough. 

Maybe he had a little while longer before John would leave. 

Sherlock glanced out at the ice. John wasn’t playing yet. He was sitting on the bench, leaned forward with the other reserve players, paying intense attention. 

Sherlock texted him. _Congratulations on a well-played hockey game. I knew you’d be exceptional. –SH_

***

John did not exactly have the game of his life, but it didn’t matter because considering that his last game had ended with him in the hospital, it was spectacular. They won the game much more handily than expected and John had played well beyond expectation. He was the center of jubilation, even though he hadn’t scored any of the goals. He was flattered by it all. The level of surprise seemed to be a bit insulting, but the level of relief was gratifying: They’d really wanted him, whole and well, on this team. 

They wanted to go out and celebrate, and John wanted to celebrate as well, but he wanted to celebrate with Sherlock, not them. He didn’t want to make it too obvious, but he wanted to make up the fight with Sherlock and go home with him and cuddle with him and make sure he understood that he _was_ on his side. 

“John wants to go celebrate with his new boyfriend,” said Mike, but he said it teasingly, and the rest of the team responded with good-natured jibes. Mike must have told them it was a boy and not a girl. John supposed he hadn’t asked him to keep it a secret, and, anyway, it was nice to see that it made no difference to them. 

He responded, “It’s just that he’s so much better-looking than any of you guys,” and someone threw a towel at him in the middle of a chorus of groaned reactions to that. 

Afterward, as he was walking out of the building, John thought he probably should have corrected Mike that Sherlock wasn’t his boyfriend. And yet it seemed like Sherlock really was. They’d even had their first fight and everything. 

John pulled his phone out to text Sherlock and was surprised to see he’d missed a text from him. John frowned at the timestamp, which stated it had been sent right at the beginning of the game. He slowly drew to a halt and took a deep breath, fighting a sense of dread, and read the text. Blinked. Re-read it. 

“Would you let me buy you dinner?” Sherlock asked him. 

John looked up from his phone. Sherlock was standing a few paces away from him, hands deep in the pockets of his coat. 

John held his phone up. “You sent this right at the beginning of the game.”

Sherlock glanced at it briefly. “Yes.”

“How’d you know I’d have a good game?”

“Because you’re you, John.”

John moved swiftly, backing Sherlock up against the wall and kissing him. After a moment, Sherlock kissed him back, hands coming up to keep John’s head in place. John decided it was the best make-up kiss after a fight he’d ever had; he was very much looking forward to the make-up sex. 

When he pulled back, Sherlock was panting and an errant curl of his hair had fallen over his eye.

“I’m sorry,” he said. John was distracted by his lips, wet and swollen and inviting. Then he translated what he was saying. “I didn’t realize that you would think…I didn’t _think_. I’m sorry.”

John managed to tear his gaze away from Sherlock’s mouth to look at his eyes. 

Sherlock said, after a moment of silence, “Did I do that right? If I didn’t do that right, I’ll try it again.”

“I’m sorry for doubting you,” choked out John. “You don’t doubt me to the extent that you praise my exceptional game before I even play it, and I—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. Of course it does.”

“John—” Sherlock started to protest. 

“Never mind.” John didn’t want to get sidetracked into another disagreement. He brushed the errant curl back into its appointed place and cupped Sherlock’s face. “I’ve apologized, you’ve apologized, let’s call it even.”

Sherlock, after a moment, jerked his head in a nod. 

“I’m starving and you probably haven’t eaten all day.” John straightened and curled his hand firmly into Sherlock’s. “So yes. Buy me dinner.”

“Not the cafeteria,” said Sherlock. 

“Anywhere but there,” agreed John. 

***

They had a lovely dinner, Sherlock thought. John was relaxed, in a good mood after the success of the game, and he kept directing the conversation to non-Olympic topics. Sherlock told him about some of the more interesting cases he’d been involved with, and John looked intrigued instead of repulsed, and Sherlock dared to hope. Should he dare to hope? 

By the time dinner was over and they were back in the skating house, Sherlock decided to turn the conversation back to Olympic discussion. 

“Where is everyone?” John asked, as the house was dark. 

“The end of pairs competition is tonight. They’re all being supportive even though Donovan and Anderson don’t stand a chance. Let’s talk about how much pain you’re in,” said Sherlock, briskly. 

“I’m not in—”

“Stop it,” Sherlock said, mildly, as they entered his bedroom. “Is it bruising? Or is it worse?”

“Bruising.”

“Let me see.” Sherlock waved a hand at John. 

“You are perfectly capable of taking my clothes off,” John pointed out. 

Sherlock huffed, “Fine,” and pulled John’s shirt over his head. Then he stood and regarded the bruises and frowned and said, again, “How much do they hurt?”

“They’re fine,” said John. “Although there are days I wonder why I didn’t take up something non-bruising, like swimming.” 

Sherlock, without a word, turned and walked into the bathroom and turned on the bath. 

“You’re…taking a shower?” John called from the bedroom, in confusion. 

Sherlock re-emerged from the bathroom. “No, I’m running you a cold bath.”

“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“You can have a hot bath tomorrow. A cold bath is better for you right now.”

“I know that. But I don’t need a bath at all. Can’t we just have sex instead?” 

“No,” said Sherlock firmly. John clearly did a terrible job of taking care of himself, so that was Sherlock’s job for the time being. As long as John would let him. “You’re tired and you’re sore. Cold bath, then bed.”

“I’m not tired,” John said, and then yawned. 

Sherlock lifted his eyebrows at him. 

John rolled his eyes but started stripping slowly, trailing into the bathroom. Sherlock stripped out of his own clothes as well, exchanging them for T-shirt and pajama bottoms, and listened to the water slosh slightly as John got settled in the tub. Then he turned to John’s bag, digging out clothing appropriate for sleep. 

“Tomorrow we’re having sex!” John called to him. 

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed absently, gathering a bundle of clothing together. “Fine.” He headed into the bathroom with it and asked, when John opened his eyes and looked at him, “Will this suffice for bed?”

John shrugged. “I could just sleep naked.”

“Yes, that’s a better idea,” Sherlock agreed, and went back into the bedroom to put the clothing away. “It’ll have to be late tomorrow, though,” he called to John, because he didn’t want him getting the wrong idea about the sex. 

There was no reaction for a moment. Then: “Wait. You’re competing tomorrow.”

“I am, yes,” answered Sherlock, and moved to turn down the bed. 

John came into the bedroom, wrapped in a towel. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

“I’m perfectly all right,” Sherlock said. “You, meanwhile, are dripping water everywhere.”

John said, “You’re going to be great tomorrow.”

Sherlock suppressed the urge to snap at him. He didn’t want to talk about the next day. He didn’t want to talk about medals. He wanted to crawl into bed next to John, curl next to him, and let John breathe, and then Sherlock would breathe, too, and that sounded like perfection to him. 

So he said, “Get into bed.” 

John said, “Wait a second,” and, still dripping water, walked over to his phone, where he sent a text. 

Sherlock’s phone vibrated on the bedside table. Looking curiously at John, he checked the text. 

_Congratulations on your skate. I knew you’d be exceptional._

“You’re ridiculous,” Sherlock said, to cover the fact that the text made his chest feel like he had just barely missed the landing on a quad, that wobbly moment that was the difference between sticking it out and falling hard with the breath knocked out of you. “Now come to bed.” Sherlock slid between the sheets. 

“No more than you,” John said, shedding his towel and crawling into bed next to Sherlock. 

Sherlock shut the lights off and cuddled close against John. John was far too wet to be in bed and now all of the sheets were going to be wet, but Sherlock wasn’t about to complain about that. 

“Why do you sign your texts?”

“Why not?” countered Sherlock, who didn’t know why John wanted to talk about such ridiculous things. 

“I know the texts are from you. You’re in my contacts list.” 

“I don’t want there to be doubt. Someone could have commandeered my phone.” 

“God, figure-skating is cutthroat, isn’t it?”

“It can be more lethal than the criminal underworld. Trust me, I know.” 

John’s hand trailed up and down Sherlock’s arm, and it was lovely and soothing. Sherlock had shared a bed without sex only once before John, and he had hated the experience. He didn’t know what made John different, just that it was true. Sherlock couldn’t imaging going back to a bed that lacked John. How could he ever sleep in the middle of all that cavernous emptiness? Sherlock tried to imagine the possibility of being happier than he was at that moment, John improbably back in his bed despite everything John now knew about him, healthy and pleased with himself after his Olympic performance. 

“I know why you were upset that I didn’t tell you about Moriarty,” said John. 

And, just like that, Sherlock felt the enormous bubble of happiness he’d been cultivating shrivel. “Let’s not talk about Moriarty,” said Sherlock. 

“I didn’t want to upset you. I was trying _not_ to upset you. That’s why I didn’t tell you.” 

“It’s fine,” said Sherlock, and buried his face in John’s neck as if that would make him stop talking. 

“No, it’s not. I didn’t know Moriarty would mention it to you. Although I should have supposed that he would. But I need you to know that it doesn’t matter to me what Moriarty thinks about you, what he might say about you. I don’t care about Moriarty.”

Sherlock didn’t like to think about the things Moriarty probably said to John. He tried not to think about them again. He said, “He talks a lot. But people do little else.” 

“I understand why you were upset about Moriarty, so I think I should tell you this, too, so you’re not blindsided.”

Sherlock felt cold, as if he’d failed to pull off the landing of that quad and had sprawled over the ice, the sharp shavings of it seeping into his skin. 

“I met another friend of yours yesterday,” continued John. 

“Friend?” echoed Sherlock, confused, trying to think who the hell that could be. 

“Enemy,” John clarified. 

“Oh.” That made so much more sense. “Which one?”

John sighed. “Your archenemy, he said. Do people have archenemies?”

Sherlock didn’t bother to answer that. Clearly normal people did. Only remarkable people like John Watson managed to go through life without them. “Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

“Yes,” John said, after a moment. 

“Did you take it?”

“Of course not.”

“Pity. We could have split the fee. Think it through next time.”

John huffed something that might have been exasperated laughter. “Who is he, Sherlock?”

“The most dangerous man you’ll ever meet and not my problem right now.”

“It’s hard to know when I’m supposed to tell you about being threatened and when I’m not.”

Sherlock sat up immediately, frowning down. “What did they threaten you with? Tell me.”

“It wasn’t like _that_. It wasn’t specific. It just wasn’t pleasant. Lay back down, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t upset me,” Sherlock denied, and let John pull him back down. 

“Nobody threatened me. They just weren’t warm, welcoming people, and I’m not eager to have a beer with them anytime soon. That’s all. Relax, relax, relax,” murmured John, against his lips, and kissed him slowly, softly, the kiss its own promise, its own reward, going nowhere but there, that moment, right then, the two of them, more real and more solid than anything else that could have happened. 

When it ended, John tipped his forehead against Sherlock’s. Sherlock, grateful for the contact, kept his eyes closed and forced himself to stay there, with John, there and nowhere else, no other frightening scenario that his mind could concoct. 

John said, “The hit came from behind. My injury. I never saw it coming. I got all tangled up in myself and went down on my shoulder hard enough to dislocate it. But that should have been such a minor injury. It should have been _nothing_. I’d been hurt worse so many times in my career. I don’t know why this one was different, but I couldn’t stop replaying it in my head. I couldn’t stop _seeing_ it. I kept trying to determine what I could have done. I hated myself so much for not having fallen _better_. It’s stupid. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” said Sherlock, after a moment. He knew John was taking a momentous step in sharing this with him, and he didn’t want to overwhelm him, but he also wanted John to understand what had happened to him. “You didn’t have a chance to make a decision about what happened, about how you could react. There was nothing you could do, it was all completely out of your control. You would hate that. You wouldn’t accept that. Your mind would rebel against that, would try to find any other way for it to make sense. Even if that meant being harder on yourself.” 

“And that’s why my leg kept giving out every time I tried to step on the ice?” guessed John. 

“Too much in your own head,” replied Sherlock. “You just had to be jolted out of that.”

“You’re the only person who ever came close to accomplishing it. And you made it look easy,” said John, and tangled a hand into Sherlock’s hair. “Thank you.” 

Sherlock wanted to say it was nothing, but it had made John happy, so Sherlock couldn’t see it as nothing. Sherlock was ill-equipped to know how to handle people saying _thank you_ to him, though. So, after a moment of vacillation, Sherlock leaned forward and kissed John in answer, hoping that John would get the general idea of what he was trying to communicate, which was: _It was my pleasure_ , and _You’re so welcome to anything I can give you_ , and _It was the best decision I ever made, to take a second look at you_. 

“And I want you to know,” John said softly, “that I really think you can win this gold medal. I really do. I’ve never seen anyone skate as beautifully as you.”

“You never watch anyone skate,” said Sherlock gruffly, in the middle of that lopsided-quad-in-the-air feeling again. 

“But I also want you to know that I don’t care whether or not you win the medal, because that doesn’t matter to me. You’ll still be you, and I’ll still be here.” 

After a moment, Sherlock reminded his body to do the things it was supposed to do, like breathe and swallow and keep his heart beating, etc. 

“Sherlock, tell me you believe me,” said John, with a trace of steel to his tone. 

Sherlock tried to say anything at all. Really he tried to. He tried to say, _I don’t think you’ll leave_ , but that was such a lie he couldn’t push it past his lips. Normally he didn’t mind lying, but that lie seemed too heavy to tell. He tried to say, _You don’t really mean that, you’ll come to your senses soon_ , which at least was true, but saying it out loud would make it seem even _truer_. 

“Sherlock, say it,” said John, more firmly this time. 

“I believe you,” whispered Sherlock, even though he really didn’t, but he did believe John meant it at the moment, and that was good enough for him. He reached out and ruffled John’s hair. 

John smiled at him and slept, and Sherlock stayed awake, and he thought of gold medals and black swans. He thought of London and the fantasy that John would go with him, and he thought of Mycroft and Moriarty and all the other obstacles that would stop it from happening. Not least of all himself.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been terrible with comments lately. Just awful. I'm so, so sorry. I love each and every single one of them and I thank you so much for them and I promise I will eventually get back to them.

Chapter Ten

When John woke up Sherlock was sleeping. He’d flailed his way to the very opposite side of the bed, duvet thrown off of him, and he looked restless somehow, even though he was still sound asleep. John slid out of bed; Sherlock didn’t stir. He walked into the bathroom and turned the shower on and then he walked back out into the bedroom. He paused and looked down at Sherlock, who was frowning slightly in his sleep, and John wondered what terrible dream he might be lost in. Then he leaned down and kissed him gently awake, kissing him until the lips under his stopped frowning and started responding. 

Which was when John pulled back. “Come and take a shower with me,” he murmured, and he winked as he headed back toward the bathroom. 

It took Sherlock a moment to join him, and he wrinkled his nose as soon as he did. “God, this water is scorching,” he complained, and turned down the temperature a bit. 

“Got to get the muscles loose. _Much_ more pleasant than that cold bath you arranged for me last night.” 

“That was practical,” said Sherlock, sounding sour. “How is this practical? We barely fit in here.”

Which was true, but John wasn’t about to let a little thing like that stop him. 

“Are you always grumpy in the morning?” John asked casually as he squirted shampoo into his hand. 

Sherlock looked offended. “I am not _grumpy_.”

“Wet your hair so I can wash it for you.”

“I can wash my hair myself,” said Sherlock. 

“Yes, but what would be the point of that? Have you ever asked yourself?”

“Clean hair?”

“You’re missing the _point_. Go ahead, wet it.”

Sherlock, looking suspicious, ducked his head under the spray, coming up with it sodden in bedraggled curls all over his head, water streaming down his face, which meant he couldn’t effectively glare because his eyes kept blinking water away. 

“All right, lean a bit so I can reach you. Since you’re so unnecessarily tall.”

“I’m a normal height.”

“Not for a figure skater.”

“You’re just short.”

“Not for a figure skater,” John said, smiling, and massaged shampoo into Sherlock’s hair. He rubbed his fingers over Sherlock’s scalp, kneading gently, and Sherlock stopped complaining, just as John had known he would. John alternated the blunt, slight scratch of his nails with the calluses of his fingers with the slide of his knuckles, over Sherlock’s head, behind his ears, along the hairline on his neck. By the time he murmured, “Rinse,” Sherlock had to shake himself back to enough awareness to obey. 

John glanced down the front of his body and cocked an eyebrow at him. “You see the point now?”

“Smug,” said Sherlock, but let John back him up against the wall of the shower and kiss him, wet and slick and gasping. 

“I’m just saying,” said John, nipping at his bottom lip, “so much better than a cold bath.”

“I would have washed your hair if you’d asked,” said Sherlock, licking into John’s mouth. 

“Not actually the point,” smiled John, and slid to his knees. “I’m going to shave you next.”

Sherlock regarded him warily. “Shave me where?”

John laughed, which was not conducive to the activity he was supposed to be engaging in, and when he caught his breath he leaned forward and swallowed Sherlock down. The water was hot against his back, and John thought that he had to get this done before the hot water ran out. 

One of Sherlock’s hands grasped at John’s hair, the other scrabbling for purchase that didn’t exist against the shower wall. “You don’t have to,” Sherlock gasped. 

John pulled off briefly. “Of course I don’t _have_ to.” He ran his tongue along the crease of Sherlock’s thigh, licking up water and sweat all at once. “I’m not your sex slave. We can play that game later.” 

Sherlock swore above him, and John smiled and said, “Good to know,” and licked a careful stripe up his erection. 

“You don’t have to, but if you’re going to, you should probably get on with it,” remarked Sherlock breathlessly. 

John chuckled and managed not to say _I love you_ by busying his mouth doing other things. Sherlock, luckily, came even more quickly than John would have supposed, meaning the water wasn’t even lukewarm yet. John stood, trying not wince as he did, but Sherlock was far too gone to notice. Sherlock was too far gone to even kiss him back. In fact, he pushed at him clumsily and said, “Let me just…” and then basically slid to the floor of the bathtub. 

John had to move quickly out of his way so as not to be brought down with him. “Flattering,” said John, with a quirk of his lips. 

But he was saying other things entirely when Sherlock, with a gracefulness John had thought him incapable of at the moment, cornered him up against the wall, and by the time _that_ was over, the water beating on them both was freezing. 

“Best shower I ever had,” John panted into Sherlock’s mouth. 

“It’s freezing,” Sherlock rejoined, but made no move to turn off the water in favor of kissing John instead. 

John thought it was fine with him if Sherlock wanted to spend the rest of the day kissing him in this shower. But Sherlock had a competition to get ready for, and John didn’t want to be the reason it went wrong. He could still hear Sherlock saying John was his pressure point. He didn’t want to cause a disaster somehow. 

So he pulled out of the kiss and turned off the shower, telling himself that, when the Olympics were over, he was going to spend many days straight doing nothing but kiss Sherlock Holmes. 

***

Sherlock’s world ranking was so low that he wasn’t even in Moriarty’s flight. There were ways in which this was nice, because it minimized how much he had to deal with him. But there were other ways in which he didn’t like it. Mainly what he didn’t like was that it showed his hand too soon. He would have preferred to go later in the night, ideally last, certainly after Moriarty. But, as it was, he was going to have to set a blind score and hope that Moriarty couldn’t reach it. Which was annoying. If Moriarty had sat by and coasted the way he’d expected to this Olympics, Sherlock could have won this easily. But he was going to provoke Moriarty’s competitive side, which he hated. 

Sherlock did a gentle skate around the rink before the competition started, just reminding himself of the feel of the ice under him. He listened to the music in his head and thought of the routine, brand new, to be revealed to the planet that night. Well, aside from John Watson, who had already seen it. 

The audience was starting to file in, the rest of the lesser skaters were crowding the ice and trying to intimidate each other. Sherlock ignored all of them, dodging around them. The big-name skaters weren’t there. They were somewhere in the bowels of the rink, going through their pre-competition routine. Or not even there yet. And Sherlock was fine with that. It was a relief to be the underestimated one again. It felt like the first Olympics he’d ever been to, when there had been nothing he couldn’t accomplish. 

Of course, that first Olympics hadn’t had John, patiently waiting by the rink for him. 

Sherlock tried not to smile as he skated up to him but couldn’t help it. 

“Am I distracting you?” John asked. 

Sherlock shook his head. 

“Good. Have fun, okay?”

Sherlock lifted his eyebrows. “Fun, John?”

“Don’t tell me that’s pointless. This morning, when I was shaving you—”

“You didn’t shave me. You put shaving cream feathers all over me.” 

“Right. And you laughed until you couldn’t breathe.”

Sherlock sulked for a moment. “I was faking that.” 

John shook his head and smiled and didn’t look fooled for a second. “I want you to think about that out there. Don’t think about how much you want this, just…go out and skate, the way you do for me.”

He couldn’t skate the way he did for John— _that_ was asking far too much in front of all these people—but he wasn’t about to expose that final nerve and have John know how special that was, too. Sherlock thought enough of him was exposed at the moment. 

“You’ll be fine,” John was saying. “Did you have fun at your first Olympics?”

He had, Sherlock admitted. He’d just been thinking that. He’d almost forgotten, buried under the sour taste of the other two Olympics. He knew why he’d been remembering it now, because John had _made_ him remember that once upon a time all of this tediousness had been fun to Sherlock, had been something worth doing, not because he was the best but because he had _liked_ it. That had all seemed so far away until John had shown up and suddenly Sherlock had wanted to skate again just for the pleasure of an exceptionally beautiful spin and the way it would light John up. 

Sherlock looked at John and nodded. 

“Good. Have fun here, too. I don’t want to kiss you with all of these eyes on us so let’s just pretend I leaned over and kissed you for good luck there.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “As if there’s not already going to be massive speculation about why Sherlock Holmes spent so long talking to an American hockey player.” John said something in response, but Sherlock was distracted by his entire family coming into view, heading in their direction, his parents waving like idiots and Mycroft frowning as usual. “Oh, damn,” Sherlock muttered. 

John turned to see what he was looking at, then turned back swiftly. “Sherlock,” he hissed. “That’s the man. The one from the other day.”

“I know exactly who that is,” Sherlock promised him darkly. 

John looked puzzled. 

“What are you _doing_ here?” Sherlock demanded of his family. 

“Coming to see you skate, darling!” said his mother. “You know we always come to see you skate!” Then she looked at John speculatively. “Hello.”

“Hi,” John said slowly, clearly not sure what he was supposed to do. His gaze flickered to Mycroft suspiciously. 

“Mr. Watson,” said Mycroft, inclining his head formally. 

“Hi,” John responded, tightly this time. 

“Oh, have you already met him?” Their mother swatted Mycroft across the arm, which was somewhat gratifying, except for how gentle she made it. “You’ve been hiding him!”

“I had to see what all the fuss was about.” Mycroft turned to look at Sherlock. “Didn’t I, brother mine?”

Sherlock glared at him. 

“Brother?” said John. “He’s your brother?” 

“Among other things,” spat out Sherlock. 

“Oh, stop it, don’t quarrel right before the competition. What did you say your name was, dear?”

“It’s John,” said John, “and you’re…?”

“Sherlock’s mum, of course.” 

“Oh. Hi. Nice to…nice to meet you.” John sounded like he was flailing, trying to figure out how he was supposed to be acting. 

“And how do you know Sherlock?”

John glanced at Sherlock. An evil part of Sherlock wanted to say, bluntly: _sex_. John turned back to his mother and said, “We’re friends.”

“How diplomatic of you,” said Mycroft, studying his umbrella. 

“Who the hell carries an umbrella into an ice rink?” snapped Sherlock at him. 

“You’re _friends_ ,” gushed Sherlock’s mother at John, looking like she was about to burst into tears. “Oh, how _lovely_. Sherlock, you should have _said_. A _friend_!”

Oh, God, could she make him look any more pathetic. “Mother—” he began. 

“Surely you see they’re not ‘friends,’” Mycroft said. “Sherlock doesn’t have _friends_.” 

John said blandly, “So are you the brother sleeping with Sherlock’s coach, or is that another brother?”

Sherlock almost kissed John. He managed to restrain himself, but it was a near thing. 

Mycroft stared at John, and then Sherlock thought that maybe Mycroft was planning to kill him, and he was going to have to hire John a full-time bodyguard. 

After the moment of shocked silence had passed, Sherlock’s mother said, “Thank you, John, for finally getting _that_ said out loud.”

Sherlock and Mycroft both gaped at her. 

“Don’t tell me you _knew_ ,” said Mycroft. 

“And you didn’t _say_ anything?” Sherlock complained. 

“What am I going to say to a grown man who wants to date another grown man? Best wishes, I suppose. Speaking of, John, you’ll come and watch the competition with us.” 

_Disaster_ , thought Sherlock. “He doesn’t—”

“It’s fine.” John looked at Sherlock. “It’ll be fine,” he repeated, and then smiled at Sherlock’s parents.

Sherlock’s father said, as if to express his agreement with everything Sherlock’s mother had just gushed out, “Lovely.” 

“Well. We’ll go and let you say a parting good luck wish. We’re looking forward to it, love,” his mother said, and leaned out over the ice. 

Sherlock reluctantly skated forward and pressed a kiss onto her cheek. And then exchanged a gruff handshake with his father and a glare with Mycroft. 

“So that’s the brother who bought me expensive champagne?” asked John mildly. “I should thank him properly.”

“He’s awful,” said Sherlock. “You don’t have to sit with them.”

John shrugged. “It’ll be fine. They seem nice enough. And I’m not weirded out by meeting your parents already. I mean, we’re already living together, it seems time to tell them.”

Sherlock couldn’t tell if John was being serious or facetious and he wanted to scream with the frustration of not knowing. 

“Do you keep your cell phone with you when you’re getting ready to compete?”

“No,” said Sherlock. 

“Keep it with you tonight. I need to make sure I keep you out of your own head.”

“That’s my advice to you.”

“And you think I don’t know why you knew how to give that advice?”

“Because you _are_ too much in your own head.”

“Because you do it, too,” said John. “Go skate to your angry violins, I’ll see you after.”

“It’s Swan Lake tonight,” Sherlock corrected him. “Angry violins tomorrow night.”

“Oh my God.” John looked delighted. “The _feathers. Finally_.”

“Go away,” Sherlock said, and skated away from him. But he could hear John’s laughter following him, and he was smiling when he stepped off the ice. 

And immediately found his phone and texted his brother. 

_Do not lay a single finger on John Watson. –SH_

_Why would I do that?_ Mycroft texted back. _In spite of myself, I find myself quite liking him. –MH_


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure that usually the short program comes before the long program in the competition, but I had to switch them here for dramatic purposes, BECAUSE I AM A LAZY AUTHOR WHO CARES NOT FOR FACTS.

Chapter Eleven

Sherlock’s family was much nicer than John would have supposed based on his initial encounter with Sherlock’s brother. It was true that Mycroft was still weird and creepy in his three-piece suit and his _umbrella_ , of all things. But he sat silently on his cell phone and John ignored him because Sherlock’s parents were also ignoring him. 

Sherlock’s father seemed quiet, but kind. Sherlock’s mother talked a mile a minute. 

And the most charming thing about her was that she was talking about Sherlock the whole time. She clearly doted on him. John wasn’t sure he would have supposed that, but it made him happy. Sherlock was beloved, and that was a good thing. 

He got to hear all about Sherlock in primary school, investigating crimes. 

“He wanted to be a detective,” his mother confided to John. 

John wanted to say that he thought he was, and then held his tongue because maybe that was a secret. 

“Such a fascination with _death_. Not that I disapprove of solving crimes, of course, but we were always standing out in the cold slogging around alleys and such looking for _evidence_. It was Sherlock’s father who suggested dance, because Sherlock’s was so good at music. Sherlock used to write waltzes for himself, you know, it was so darling. So we thought some formal training might do him good. But of course being somewhere comfortable was never something Sherlock was going to endorse. So here I find myself right back in the cold that I was trying to avoid with the whole thing.” She laughed merrily. 

John thought how Sherlock would have hated all these stories being told, and yet they were fantastic. 

Then she said, “How did the two of you meet?”

“Practicing,” said John honestly. 

“Oh, that’s right. Hockey, did he say?”

“Yes. I can’t do any of these jumps and spinny things.” 

“Yes, but he couldn’t skate with a stick in his hand,” said Sherlock’s father, leaning past his wife to say it, “so don’t let it bother you.”

“Oh, I’m so happy for the two of you,” said Sherlock’s mother, clasping her hands together dramatically. “He can be so _lonely_. Although he’d never say it. I hoped he’d meet someone and settle down.”

Not only had she clearly not bought the “friend” angle, she had already jumped ahead to some kind of lifelong commitment, thought John. He didn’t know if it was more alarming that Sherlock’s mother was expecting this of the relationship, or that he really didn’t mind. John thought that, in all honesty, if Sherlock had skated up to him and said, “Let’s get married,” he would have said, “Yes,” without hesitation. 

Eventually, it was time for Sherlock’s flight to do their warm-ups. Sherlock was indeed wearing feathers. Black feathers. John watched him and _adored_ him, couldn’t wait to talk to him again, to smile at him and kiss him into an answering smile, make him not this untouchable black swan but his Sherlock, the way he knew him, willing to let him draw shaving cream feathers onto him. 

But Sherlock had a horrible warm-up. He fell on the very first jump he tried, spun out of it the next time he tried it. Tried it again and fell again. Skated away from the site of the jump and just went in circles around the rink, his head down, his feathers fluttering around him. 

John tried to determine if he was doing it on purpose to lull the skaters around him or if he’d really rattled himself that much. 

“Can I borrow your binoculars?” he asked Sherlock’s father politely. 

“Certainly.” He handed them over. “You can also listen, if you want.” 

“Listen?”

“He gets a livestream of the event,” Mycroft said, sounding bored, “so that he can hear what the commentators have to say.” 

“Oh,” said John, distracted by focusing the binoculars on Sherlock. “Maybe.” 

Sherlock didn’t look upset with himself. Sherlock looked shaken. John watched him skate his way off the ice, and Lestrade was talking to him, and Sherlock shook his head sharply and turned away from Lestrade, and John recognized that look. Resigned dread. John knew it well. 

John put down the binoculars, pulled out his phone. 

_A much more attractive swan than I had supposed._

_Don’t even bother to change out of that when you’re done. I’m just going to make you put it back on._

_Do you have any idea the use I could make of those feathers?_

John picked up the binoculars again, focused them on Sherlock, thinking desperately, _Pick up your phone. Stop thinking what you’re thinking and think about that instead._ Sherlock was guzzling water and looked like he was about to duck through the door to the hallways behind. He paused to grab his cell phone and he looked at it. And then he smiled. Genuine. John watched him text back a second before his phone vibrated in his lap. 

John looked at it. 

_Burn them for heat? --SH_

John smiled. Better, he thought. That was much better. 

***

By the time Sherlock skated out onto the ice to perform his program, John was so nervous he thought he was going to be sick. He leaned over, forcing himself to watch and wondering if Sherlock had been nervous for him at the hockey game. No, Sherlock would have told him that of course he hadn’t been nervous because he’d known John would do well. 

“Do you want to listen?” Sherlock’s mother asked him calmly, holding an earbud out to him. 

John didn’t think he wanted to, but he also didn’t want to be rude to Sherlock’s mother and maybe he had a bit of morbid curiosity about what they were going to say. 

“ _...has won a bronze and two silvers in his Olympic career, but has never been able to catch that elusive gold_ ,” a woman was saying in a dramatic hushed tone. 

_“He was favored to win in his last two Olympics but as you can see from his current placement he’s fallen off the world pace and hasn’t been on the podium in a major world competition in years.”_

_“And he had a truly terrible warm-up, didn’t land a single jump.”_

John decided he hated all of these people. 

_“What do you think his goal is for this Olympics?”_

_“I think it’s just to have fun and go out on his terms.”_

John almost snorted. They clearly didn’t know Sherlock at all.

On the ice, Sherlock had gone still, his feathers fluttering just slightly, and then the music started. John watched as Sherlock moved, his eyes on Sherlock’s edges, remembering what Sherlock had said about the importance of them. They looked deep and sharp and crisp to John. He lifted his eyes up from the edges, focusing on the entire dramatic picture of him out on the ice. He was so gorgeous, John thought, mouth dry, and he didn’t think he thought that just because he’d seen him naked. He was simply breathtaking, the long, sinuous line of him. The _presence_ of him filled the entire rink, the entire space of the venue, gliding, twisting, turning. 

John felt the coiled pause as Sherlock skated backward, looking over his shoulder, and on the earbud the announcers, who had gone silent, said, “ _His first jump is a triple toeloop and—_ ”

And on the ice Sherlock shifted to face forward and launched himself into a towering jump that momentarily created a vacuum of stunned reaction before the crowd launched into applause to greet it. On John’s earbud, the male announcer was exclaiming, “ _He changed it to a quad axel! He just threw a quad axel into his program!_ ” 

And that was how it began. For the next four minutes and thirty seconds, Sherlock commanded every breath in the room, held the audience in the palm of his hand, and he made it look easy, _effortless_. He landed jump after jump quickly and cleanly, settled into spins that looked impossibly fast, and the crowd was so with him that they even cheered his footwork sequence as he danced his way over the ice, moving speedily across the rink, every part of him in a beautiful fluid line of motion, and when it was over the roar of the crowd was deafening. John didn’t even join in because it was too lovely to just sit there and listen to the applause. John raised his binoculars, and on the ice Sherlock was smiling. Actually smiling. 

The male announcer in John’s ear said, “ _And that was a_ statement _by Sherlock Holmes. That was a_ throwdown.”

_“It wasn’t just the technical proficiency but it was the_ heart _,”_ agreed the female announcer. _“Holmes has always been a technically sound skater but he has frequently struggled to connect with the emotion of a piece, to connect with an audience, to feel human. He nailed that tonight.”_

_“Not just Sherlock Holmes’s skating performance of the season, but possibly the single best skating performance I’ve seen all season.”_

_“No question,”_ agreed the woman. 

John removed the earbud and thought, _Your move, Moriarty._

***

The night ended with Moriarty in the lead and Sherlock second by three points. Their next nearest competitors were a cluster of three eight points behind Sherlock. John accepted Sherlock’s family’s congratulations on Sherlock’s behalf, making excuses about how Sherlock was going to be tired and needed to maintain his headspace for the short program the next night. Really he was just trying to save Sherlock the energy of being annoyed by them. And also he wanted to undress Sherlock incredibly slowly and take his time with him. 

John waited for Sherlock by the door where the competitors would be exiting. He texted him to let him know he was there, although he didn’t get a response. He’d texted him after the program, too, but he hadn’t gotten a response to that one, either. 

Moriarty came out the door, and John swore and looked for somewhere to hide. 

Which was stupid because Moriarty saw him immediately and walked over to him. “Sherlock’s playing the game again, I see,” he said, his voice cold. 

“Scrabble?” guessed John, refusing to be goaded. 

“Tell him I owe him another fall,” said Moriarty, before turning and stalking away. 

John watched him go and smiled and texted Sherlock again. _You’ve got Moriarty rattled._

He’d just hit send when Lestrade came out the door.

“John,” he said to him, sounding surprised. 

John didn’t know why he should be surprised. “Hello,” he replied pleasantly. “I’m waiting for Sherlock.” 

“He went home.”

John blinked. “What? When?”

“After his flight. He didn’t stick around for the rest of the competition. I thought he would have texted you.”

“He didn’t,” said John, caught between being annoyed and concerned. 

“Jesus,” said Lestrade, sounding distressed. 

“Not a big deal,” John assured him. “I’m sure he’s at the skating house waiting for me.” 

“If he’s not, get in touch with me right away. Do you have my number?”

John handed across his phone so it could be added. 

“I think you’re panicking for nothing,” John said. “He skated well, he just wanted to avoid Moriarty.” The idea made sense to John, actually, he just wished he’d been let in on the plan. 

Lestrade snorted and handed John’s phone back to him. “Just tell me if he’s not there.”

John nodded, thinking Lestrade was definitely overreacting. 

Lestrade called to him, stopping him. “He skated _beautifully_ tonight.”

John turned, pleased, because he’d agreed but he was no expert. He nodded happily. 

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him skate like that before,” Lestrade continued. “Thank you.”

John was quizzical. “That was him.”

“That was _you_ ,” said Lestrade firmly. “And I don’t know if he’ll realize and thank you for it, so I will. Thanks.” Lestrade walked past John, and John stood still long after he had disappeared from view, staring thoughtfully into the night. 

***

John walked into the skating house to find the living room full of the usuals. They just looked at him when he walked in, but they didn’t say anything derogatory about Sherlock. John considered the silence to be a win. 

Luckily, Sherlock was in their bedroom when John walked in. He was sprawled on the bed. And he was smoking. The room reeked of it. 

“Christ, how many have you had?” John asked, coughing and moving immediately over to the window to throw it open. 

Sherlock didn’t answer. 

“Sherlock,” John said, walking over to the bed and grabbing a pack of cigarettes off it. Sherlock took a drag on the cigarette still in his hand. “Since when do you smoke?”

“I’ve always smoked,” Sherlock said to the ceiling. “That’s the thing about you, John: You know so little about me in the long run.”

John tipped his head in confusion, refused to be baited. He walked into the bathroom and turned the bathtub on, then walked back into the bedroom. 

“Come on, you,” he said. 

Sherlock didn’t answer. 

“Sherlock,” John said firmly, perplexed by his behavior. “It’s cold bath time. You haven’t taken one yet, seeing as how you’re still dressed in your warmup suit, and your muscles are going to be sore for tomorrow if you don’t.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Sherlock, still to the ceiling. 

“What?” said John, thinking he’d misheard him. 

Sherlock turned his head and looked at John finally, his ice eyes glittering. “I said it _doesn’t. Matter._ ” 

“Of course it—”

“I’m going to lose, John. I might as well not even show up.” Sherlock looked back at the ceiling. 

“Sherlock, that’s not—”

“ _Silver_ ,” scoffed Sherlock. “Who wants a bloody silver? One of the little idiots squabbling over bronze would be happy if I ever stepped out.” 

“Why would you ever step out? You’re only three points behind Moriarty—”

“I needed to be ahead of him, John,” snapped Sherlock. “I needed to be in the lead going into the short program. I’m not. I failed. It’s over. It’s _all. Over_.” Sherlock stubbed out his cigarette in a petri dish on the bedside table, and for a second John wondered where he’d gotten the petri dish from. Then Sherlock rolled himself out of bed, dragged himself past John, turned off the bathtub, and began emptying the water. 

“Hey,” John said sharply, turning to follow him into the bathroom. “You’re not giving up.” 

“No. I’m not. I’m evaluating the mathematical possibilities and making an educated decision. Not enough people make educated decisions, John. They delude themselves into thinking all sorts of ridiculous things. I have been among them in the past, and I told myself I wasn’t going to do it again. I was going to come here, and I was going to _win_. I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself.”

“Sherlock, you have in no way, shape, or form made a fool of yourself,” John told him. “Did you watch back your performance? Did you hear the commentary? The announcers were fawning over you. They said they hadn’t seen a better performance all season.” 

“Well, in fact they have, the performance of the person who is currently ahead of me.” 

“Sherlock—”

“I _don’t. Have. The points_ , John,” Sherlock shouted at him suddenly, whirling on him. John took an automatic step back. “I’ve been telling you that! I don’t have the points!”

“You said you did, barely,” John reminded him. 

“That was if I got full points for the program tonight and if Moriarty didn’t up his game. I didn’t get full points. And he did up his game. I can’t catch him in the short program, I don’t have enough points in the short program. His short program is loaded, he’s owned it all season, no one’s beaten his short program since he debuted it.”

“Maybe he’ll make a mistake. Maybe he’ll get cocky and—”

“Moriarty doesn’t make mistakes,” said Sherlock, pushing his way out of the bathroom to collapse melodramatically back onto the bed. “Moriarty’s not _me_.” 

John considered for a moment, then turned off the bathroom light and walked over to lay on the bed next to Sherlock, who looked stubbornly up at the ceiling. “If it were me, you’d never let me give up,” he pointed out. 

Sherlock made a disgusted scoffing sound. “Because you’re _you_. You’re amazing. In a good way. In the best way.”

The implied converse of that—that Sherlock wasn’t—was ridiculous to John. How could Sherlock think that, for even a second? John went to interrupt. 

But then Sherlock said, “I have always been the freak.”

The use of that particular word— _freak_ ¬—the one Donovan had used to describe Sherlock, gave John pause. 

Sherlock went on, “They’ve never known what to do with me, and I’ve never been able to make them happy. I’ve never been able to determine what it is they want.” 

Who was he talking about? John wondered. The judges? “That’s their problem. Not yours.”

“It’s mine to the extent that I wanted a gold medal,” said Sherlock bitterly, and then dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I wanted that stupid, sodding, bloody gold medal. I told myself I didn’t, but I came here again because once they started talking ‘Olympics’ again I thought that this time I’d absolutely show everyone, and I would get it. I have made the most enormous mess, and you are free to leave.” 

"Why would I ever leave?" asked John. 

“Because you’ve only known me a few days and by now you’ve realized that all the advice you got was right and only a mad person would stay with me.”

“I have never been especially sane, as anyone would tell you. And I _don’t care_ about the medal, Sherlock. _You_ do, and I understand why, but I’m here to say that if you don’t win it, I won’t care. I’m not leaving. No matter what happens tomorrow. No matter what you decide to do. I don’t care. I’m not here because I was playing some kind of ‘bag a gold-medal winner’ game. I’m not here because you skate.”

Sherlock looked at him. He looked exhausted, bone-deep tired, and John felt a twinge of sympathy because he knew that feeling, he’d been mired in it for a long time before he had met Sherlock and Sherlock had magically shaken it all away. Or maybe made it matter less. Maybe John had just needed to be given something in his life that wasn’t hockey, something that wasn’t failing him, something like Sherlock. Maybe that’s what Sherlock was missing. Maybe there was nothing in his life that wasn’t skating, and maybe he needed that badly. 

“You wouldn’t even be here if I didn’t skate,” Sherlock pointed out wearily. 

John shook his head. “That’s why we met. That’s not why I stayed.”

Sherlock just kept looking at him, and John couldn’t tell if he understood or not. 

John leaned forward and kissed the top of his nose. “Are you sleeping in that smoky training suit you’re wearing?” 

“I’m not sleeping tonight,” Sherlock said almost petulantly. 

John shook his head a bit but smiled to lessen the impact of it and kissed the tip of Sherlock’s nose again. “Fine. Have it your way.” He rolled out of bed and went through his own bedtime routine. Then he walked out into the bedroom with aftershave, some of which he coaxed onto his hand and then sprinkled over Sherlock where he was lying with his eyes closed and his fingers steepled. 

Sherlock flinched at the moisture coming into contact with him and opened his eyes. “What are you doing?” 

“If you want me to sleep with someone who reeks of smoke, you have to give me a bit of leeway.”

Sherlock turned onto his side, grumbling, and pulled the duvet up over his head. 

John smiled. He needed to jar Sherlock out of his self-pitying sulk, and he thought treating him like normal might work. He put the aftershave away and turned off the bedroom light and got into bed. 

Sherlock didn’t roll toward him. John looked at the unmoving bulk of him and thought how differently he’d thought this night was going to go. He’d thought Sherlock would be glowing with triumph. He understood now why Lestrade worried about Sherlock. If Sherlock without John had had nothing to think of but skating, he must have been terrifying when the skating failed him. 

John leaned over and kissed Sherlock through the duvet, just as a reminder that he was there, that he wasn’t leaving.

“I didn’t expect to win anything the first Olympics,” said Sherlock suddenly, and John stayed very still, thinking that Sherlock might stop talking if John moved at all. “When I did it was lovely. But it wasn’t like I needed the medal. But then when I came back, I was supposed to win. And I _should_ have won. I skated well, and I should have won, and I lost by three-tenths of a point, and they said it was an incomplete rotation on my part, or something, but do you know how that feels? To put the best you can do out on the ice, and to know it was supposed to be enough, and to have them say, ‘No, after all, we were looking for something else.’ I wasn’t good enough for them. I gave them exactly what they wanted, and it wasn’t good enough for them.” 

John didn’t know how Sherlock dealt with being in a judged sport. Sure, sometimes you got a bad call or two in hockey, but you didn’t lie awake at night wondering how to get capricious people to like you. And John could tell it went against Sherlock’s personality type. John found him charming and irresistible, but he was aware that not everyone saw him that way, that the abruptness that appealed to John would be abrasive to others. Sherlock had chosen a sport that went against his nature, no wonder he was so conflicted about it. “They were idiots,” said John. 

“It didn’t matter what they were. They were the gatekeepers. If I wanted my gold medal, I had to go through them.” Sherlock rolled onto his back, pushing the duvet away from him. “So for a little while I…gave up. Skating was stupid, why had I taken it up, there were other more interesting things…” Sherlock trailed off meaningfully, and John filled in the blank he didn’t say with what John knew: drugs. Sherlock took a deep breath. “So then when that was over, I was…persuaded that the best thing I could do would be to come back and show them they were wrong the last time. The thought had appeal. It might not surprise you to learn I like to prove people wrong.”

John chuckled, but it was the ghost of a chuckle, just because he knew it was expected. 

“I was going to be so careful, so technically proficient, no room for an incomplete rotation to be deducted. I had a fantastic two seasons leading into the Olympics, I was such a heavy favorite, there was no one close to me in the rankings. And then I lost again. Not enough _heart_ , they said. Still not what they wanted.”

John let the silence fall. Then he said, “I can’t give you a gold medal. But you’re what _I_ want.”

“Again I remind you: You’ve only known me a few days. We’re having an Olympic fling, emotions are high, and you’re perpetually drunk on your good fortune in being here.” 

“That’s not true,” John protested. 

“Drunk people are not especially known for their brilliant self-assessment.”

“I’m not drunk.” John half-sat up, so that he could lean over Sherlock. “You skate tomorrow however you want. You’ll still be exactly what I want. If I’m drunk on anything, I’m drunk on you.”

“You’re completely ridiculous,” Sherlock said, but he said it as if he was saying the exact opposite. 

“I know,” said John. “I think it’s one of my best features.” John leaned down and kissed Sherlock, coaxing his lips open to give him entrance, licking into Sherlock’s mouth. 

Sherlock responded after a second, a slide of his tongue, a tilt of his head to adjust their angle. “Not true,” he mumbled. 

“Not true?” John kissed along Sherlock’s jaw, bit lightly. Sherlock gasped deliciously and clenched his hands in John’s hair. “Oh, that’s right, you think my best feature is my sex hair.” 

“But most of the time you comb your hair horrible,” managed Sherlock, already panting. 

“Right.” John licked at Sherlock’s Adam’s apple. “I almost forgot about that.” 

“You are so much greater than the sum of your parts,” said Sherlock. 

John had been worrying at the collar of Sherlock’s training suit, nudging his way underneath it, but he went still at that. Sherlock’s version of romance, he supposed. And he loved it. He just… _loved_ him. 

John lifted his head up to look down at Sherlock. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Sometimes I worry there’s something wrong with your head, John Watson.”

“There is, I had a psychosomatic limp, remember?” 

Sherlock laughed, just a little, but John thought his victory was complete. When he leaned down and kissed Sherlock again, he kissed him back without any hesitation at all.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve 

“You shouldn’t come to the game today,” John told Sherlock, trying to shave while Sherlock was doing the ridiculous things he did to make his hair look like sex hair all day. 

“Of course I should.” 

"You should concentrate on your competition—”

“I dwell too much in my own head, isn’t that what you told me? Your game will be a distraction. I’ll at least stay for the beginning.”

John turned to settle against the sink, watching Sherlock fluffing at his hair. “And then you’ll have a blast skating tonight.” 

Sherlock gave him a look. “You can’t just command me to have fun, you know.” 

“Can I persuade you to listen to me in other ways?”

Sherlock glanced at his watch. “No. No time.”

“God, how are you so practical?”

“Lestrade would tell you I am not practical at all.”

“Does any person you’ve ever met actually have any idea who you are?”

Sherlock considered. “No.” 

He meant that, John realized. “No wonder you think everyone’s an idiot. You’ve been surrounded by them.” 

Sherlock smiled only a little. 

John gave him a quick kiss. “Stay out of your head. I’ll see you at the game.” John walked out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, past Sherlock’s violin in its case. He looked at it and called back, “Play your violin!”

“As you wish, Captain,” drawled Sherlock as he came out of the bathroom. 

John paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked back. “Captain?”

“Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’d be a general if you’d joined the army.” 

“Prick,” said John good-naturedly and winked at him as he left. 

***

John played another excellent hockey game, with even more playing time than he’d had the last game. They rolled over the team with ease, and John was actually thinking that he was looking forward to a game with a challenge in it. Who would have predicted that he would so quickly reach that point? 

John changed hurriedly after the game, looking at his watch. He had been so locked into the game that he had barely noticed whether Sherlock had been there, although he trusted that he had. But Sherlock would need to know John was there tonight. Sherlock would need to know that John had meant it when he said it didn’t matter. 

“And off you go,” remarked Mike. 

“Off I go,” agreed John. “He’s skating tonight.”

“I know. We all watched him last night. We feel very invested in him for you.”

John grinned at him. “Thank you. I’m touched.” 

“If it’s the sex that’s made you so smooth on the ice the last couple of days, are you willing to share?” asked Grady, passing by with a wink at John. 

“Haha,” said John, shrugging on his coat. 

“Is he a nervous competitor? What are figure skaters like? What’s their routine?” asked Mike. 

“I don’t know what the rest are like, but he doesn’t seem to have much of a routine. Today I told him to spend the day playing the violin.”

“He plays the violin, too. Jesus, he’s a regular Renaissance man. When do we get to meet him?”

John barely heard the question. Because John was staring at Mike, thinking. “He plays the violin,” he said breathlessly. 

“Yeah, that’s what you just said.” Mike looked confused. “You okay?”

“I’ve got to go,” John said, and took off out of the hockey venue at a mad dash. 

Luckily the figure skating rink wasn’t far. When John got there, there was a flight doing warm-ups on the ice. John scanned them, pushing his way down toward the front, flashing ID and hoping no one was looking too closely. He spotted Moriarty, which meant it had to be Sherlock’s flight. And then Sherlock skated over and beckoned, giving John that last little push past security. 

“I drew the last skate,” Sherlock said, smiling widely. “That’s a good thing, I’ll know exactly what I have to—”

“It’s your own composition, isn’t it?” John gasped. 

Sherlock blinked. “What?”

“That violin piece you skated for me. You wrote that music.”

“I…” Sherlock’s face shuttered a bit, as if he didn’t know where the conversation was going so he was choosing to be cautious about it. “Yes.”

“That’s the routine you need to skate tonight. That one.”

“John. I—”

“No. Listen to me. You’ve been trying to figure out what they want from you, who they want you to be. Who cares? What I want you to be is _you_. And that’s what that routine is. It’s _you_. It’s so much you. And you know that. You weren’t worried about me meeting the rest of the skating team because I’d seen that routine, because I’d seen you, the essence of you, who you were. And you don’t like to show that, you don’t like to expose that, because it’s giving up control, and no one understands that more than I do. But it’s beautiful and it’s perfect and it’s what I want them to see, for the last time they see you. I want them, finally, to see _you_. You said the Wagner program doesn’t have enough points. Does the violin program?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then skate that. Give yourself the shot, Sherlock. Take it. If you hold back now because you play it safe, you will never forgive yourself. And I don’t want us to start like that. Because do you know what happened when you skated that program for me?” John lifted his hands, oblivious to everyone watching, and cupped them around Sherlock’s face. “I fell in love with you. I love you. That’s… I love you.” John fell silent, almost surprised by everything he had said. 

Sherlock looked more than surprised. Sherlock looked shocked. He blinked his ice-tinted eyes at John. For a long time. 

Long enough that John dropped his hands, feeling awkward. “Sherlock?” he prompted. 

Sherlock kept blinking. 

John said, desperately, panicked, “Okay, forget I—”

Sherlock grabbed his shirt suddenly and pulled him in and kissed him. 

“Okay,” breathed John. “That seems good, right?” 

“You’re terrifying,” Sherlock told him. 

“I’m going to choose to interpret that as good, too,” said John, after a second. “And now that we’ve just probably made headlines everywhere, I’m going to go find your parents and you’re going to go skate. And when it’s over, no matter what, we’ll go home together.”

“It’s all very good, John,” said Sherlock meaningfully. 

Which John thought was pretty much an _I love you, too_. 

***

Sherlock turned away from the boards and tried to skate toward Lestrade. Luckily, most of the other skaters were so focused on competing that they hadn’t noticed the display by the boards. Not that Sherlock was overly concerned about that display. Sherlock was thinking about other things. Like the program he was just about to skate. 

Moriarty, of course, had not missed anything by the boards. He skated up to Sherlock, staying in sync with him. “You’ve rather shown your hand,” remarked Moriarty smugly. 

Sherlock thought of the secret program, which no one had ever seen before, other than John. He thought of skating it through, clean and beautiful, for John, who loved it, and for _himself_ , because he loved it, too. He would skate it, and he would have a good time, and who cared what happened with the gold medal. 

He drew up next to where he was exiting the ice, and he looked at Moriarty, and he smiled. “Actually, I haven’t,” he said, and stepped off the ice. 

Lestrade looked at him uncertainly. “Should I mention—”

“We need to change my music. Where’s my phone?” 

Lestrade blinked. “What?”

“My _phone_ , Lestrade, where is it?” Sherlock found it on the end of the bench and scrolled through it to his music. “This, we need to change my music to this.”

Lestrade was just staring at him. 

“Lestrade.” Sherlock snapped his fingers in front of his face, and Lestrade jumped. “Hurry up, get them to change it.”

“What are you talking about? Sherlock.” Lestrade leaned closer and hissed, “You’re in second place, really close to first. Your short program—”

“Doesn’t have enough points to win. This one does. And, more importantly, I actually like this one.”

“I thought you loved the Wagner.” 

“The Wagner is perfect in every detail, exactly what everyone would expect, and I hate it. I want this one.”

“Sherlock.” Lestrade took a deep breath. “You wanted this gold medal. Don’t throw it away.”

“I’m not. I’m not throwing away anything that means anything to me. Switch the music.”

“What’s the piece called, at least?” 

“Say it’s called ‘For John,’ and the composer is S. Holmes.” Sherlock brushed past him. 

“What, _you_?” Lestrade called. 

“Don’t bother me until it’s my turn to skate,” Sherlock said, and ducked into the corridors behind the rink. 

And then he kept moving, restlessly, up and down the hallways, trying to stay loose, dodging the other skaters doing the same thing. Once he saw Moriarty, but he quickly changed directions. He didn’t want to have another run-in with Moriarty. He didn’t want to give Moriarty any more importance. For too long he had been fixated on Moriarty, and now he had something so much more important to fixate on. So much more important than _any_ of this. 

When Lestrade came to get him, Sherlock said one thing. “Did he fall?”

“No,” said Lestrade. 

Then he needed to be perfect. 

Sherlock skated out to center ice, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. 

And let it all go. Everything. Everything in the world that wasn’t John. 

Sherlock afterward could only remember bits and pieces of the program. He heard the music and he moved to go along with it. But he couldn’t remember a single jump or spin, only isolated flashes, an edge here, an extension of an arm there. He remembered, mostly, the blood roaring in his ears and the loudness of his breaths, the sharp sound of his blades on the ice as he moved. He skated for this one last time because he loved it, because John loved it, because he loved John. Because John loved him. John loved him, and he didn’t want to leave, and Sherlock would make sure he didn’t.

Sherlock skated exactly as he’d always wanted to skate, and when he was done, what he noticed was the silence, and then the applause crashed down on him, as if from a great height. Sherlock stood in the middle of the ice, panting for breath, and closed his eyes one last time, listened to all of it, and said a mental good-bye. 

When he skated off to the side, Lestrade met him and said, in amazement, “What _was_ that?”

“It was figure skating, Lestrade,” said Sherlock. 

“No. Sherlock. That was _amazing_.”

“Was it? Good.” 

“I don’t think you understand—”

“John’s already told me,” Sherlock said, and went over to sit in the detestably named kiss-and-cry. 

Lestrade sat next to him and said, “I’m trying to pretend that I knew you were going to do that.”

“Why?”

“So that I don’t look like a useless coach.”

“You _are_ a useless coach.” 

“This is such a rewarding job. You need—”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Sherlock. 

“What?”

“Doesn’t matter.” _John loves me_ , Sherlock thought. Nothing else was ever going to matter ever again. He said it one more time in his head: _John loves me_. 

And it’s what he was thinking when his score started to be announced, not that he heard it, because the roar of the crowd that met it was so enormous that it was drowned out. Then Lestrade hugged him, and Sherlock thought there would be only one reason why Lestrade would have hugged him: He must have won the gold. 

“You did it,” exclaimed Lestrade, confirming it. “You did it!”

“I told you I would,” sniffed Sherlock. 

“Wanker,” grinned Lestrade. “Smile, won’t you? Oh. Here.” He thrust something at Sherlock. 

“What the hell is this?”

“A British flag.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“ _Wear_ it.”

“What?”

“Go and skate around and wave it around. Come on, you’ve seen other people do that.”

“I’ll look ridiculous.”

“I bet John will find a way to get close to the boards for you.”

“Fine.” Sherlock stood. “I’ll do one circuit.”

He felt ridiculous skating along with a British flag fluttering behind him, but Lestrade was right: John was by the boards, leaning out. 

Sherlock skated over to him and fully intended to kiss him and then suddenly felt…not shy, that wasn’t the word for it. He suddenly just wanted _more_. Instead of kissing him, he hugged him, pressing his face into the curve of John’s shoulder. 

“Told you so,” John said into his ear. 

“I’ll let you be smug about this one.” 

“Damn straight. Now smile a little bit and skate around and look happy.”

Sherlock lifted his head. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” John said, knowing exactly what he meant. 

Which was why Sherlock loved him back. Sherlock knew he was smiling when he skated away. He even waved his flag around a little bit. 

***

John went to Sherlock’s medal ceremony. He stood with Sherlock’s family. Sherlock’s mother wept, and John pretended that he didn’t get a bit emotional, too. Afterward, Sherlock was surrounded by press. He looked annoyed by it but he was talking to them, so John thought that was a good sign. 

John said his farewells to the Holmeses. 

“Won’t you stay until he’s done?” asked Sherlock’s mother, kissing his cheek. 

John didn’t want to intrude on the Holmes family interaction. He also wanted his reunion with Sherlock after his gold medal to be private. So he shook his head and said, “Tell him I’m waiting for him at home.”

John checked his phone as he walked back to the skating house. There were congratulatory texts from basically everyone on the hockey team. John responded to all of them with a hope that it was setting a gold medal precedent. 

When he got to the skating house, Irene Adler was sitting in the living room with the television tuned to Olympic coverage. She was drinking a glass of wine, and she looked at him as he walked in. 

“Look at you, returning in your moment of triumph.”

“It was Sherlock’s triumph.” 

“You got him there.”

“He got himself there.” 

Irene made a skeptical noise and sipped her wine. “Never got himself there before.” 

Sherlock’s face came onto the television screen, an interview. He was frowning a little bit. Irene turned the volume up, and John moved into the room so he could see better. 

“Congratulations on your gold, Sherlock,” the interviewer said. 

“Thank you,” Sherlock replied. 

“You’ve been chasing it a long time.”

“Yes,” answered Sherlock simply. 

“What was the key this time?”

Sherlock paused. “I think I made a very attractive swan.”

John smiled. 

The interviewer chuckled uncertainly. “Okay,” he said. “What about next Olympics? Same plan of attack? Swan Lake?”

“I won’t be at the next Olympics,” said Sherlock. “I’m done.” And he smiled for the first time in the whole interview.

The broadcast cut back to the studio, where the announcer, smirking, said, “We were polite enough not to ask Sherlock about it, but if you’re wondering about his mystery man—” Here the television flashed up footage of John getting pulled in for a kiss by Sherlock, of the triumphant gold medal congratulations, and John winced a little bit—“it’s U.S. hockey player John Watson.” Back to the studio. The announcer smiled cheekily at the camera. “He must be a pretty good good-luck charm. And now back to the ski slopes—” 

Irene turned the volume down and remarked, “I hope your sexuality wasn’t a secret.” 

“I would have taken more care if it had been, don’t you think?” countered John. 

“I don’t know,” said Irene. “People generally think less than they should about how much they give away.” She took another sip of her wine and looked at him thoughtfully and said, “He was always terrible at playing the game. It was his problem. He was just _terrible_ at playing it. He’ll be relieved not to have to play it any longer.”

“Yeah,” agreed John. “I think he’ll be happy to be done having to hear everyone talking to him about not having a gold medal all the time.”

“Oh, the gold.” Irene waved her hand around. “I wasn’t talking about the gold. I’m talking about everything else. Sherlock has never really cared about the gold as much as the rest of us, as much as he’s pretended to. Not deep down. Deep down he was always looking for something else entirely. It was why he could never quite seal the deal, because he was never quite all in with what he was doing. He’s all in now, you know. I _do_ hope you know. He’s terrible at this game the rest of us play so effortlessly, this game of just _being_. He’ll be relieved to have found someone he doesn’t have to play it with.”


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Sherlock walked back to the skating house with his gold medal in his pocket, his hand wrapped around it. When he walked in, Irene was sitting up, reading, with a bottle of wine by her side. 

Sherlock paused, feeling the inevitability of the conversation. Irene stood immediately, walking over to him, willowy and lithe, like a panther as she moved. Sherlock held his ground and Irene paused in front of him and almost smiled. 

“This whole time,” she said, “you were playing a completely different game. And you won that one. So congratulations.” She leaned over and very gently kissed his cheek before murmuring in his ear, “But I won’t pretend I’m not extremely disappointed I never convinced you to take me to dinner.” 

“I seldom eat,” said Sherlock, deliberately obtuse. 

“Exactly,” replied Irene, and drew back, and she _was_ smiling now. “Go on, he’s waiting for you.” 

Sherlock gave her a tight smile and walked up the stairs carefully, thinking very hard about what he should say. He had to say something _perfect_ , for all of the perfect things that John had said to him. 

He opened the door to his bedroom, and John smiled at him from the bed, where he was reading a terrible mystery novel. He was dressed in jeans and a hideous jumper; his hair was delightfully mussed, and Sherlock wondered if he’d done that for him purposely. 

John tossed his novel aside, rolled off the bed, and walked over to him, beaming brightly. “Well? Where is it?”

Sherlock took the medal out of his pocket and handed it across to him. 

John regarded it closely, then looked up at him, still grinning. “It’s gorgeous. Not quite as gorgeous as you, of course, but it does come close, don’t you think?” John draped it playfully around Sherlock’s neck, pressed his hand over it where it rested on Sherlock’s chest. “Congratulations.”

Sherlock lifted his hands up and cupped John’s face and studied it carefully, locking every bit of it into his mind palace. He never, ever wanted to forget anything about John Watson. 

John, after a moment, lifted his hands up to rest loosely around Sherlock’s wrists. “Hey,” he said softly. “What’s all this?”

“I love you, too,” Sherlock said, before he lost the nerve to say it. It had been the only thing he could come up with to match the perfection of John’s speech, to steal his words and parrot them back to him. Sherlock had wanted to come up with something _more_ , but he had reached the conclusion that there was nothing more than that in the entire universe: those three words, said by this particular man. Sherlock would have flung the gold medal out into the night if John had asked him to. There was nothing more important than keeping John, forever, however he might manage to do that. He was simply going to give it his very best try. 

John smiled at him, then leaned forward and kissed him, soft and gentle. Sherlock imagined that if the kiss could talk, it would say, _I love you_ , and Sherlock loved that about the kiss. Sherlock wanted to kiss John back that way, tried desperately to get the point across to him. _I love you, too, and I won a gold medal tonight, but the more important thing was that you said that you loved me, and maybe you’ll stay. Maybe you’ll_ stay.

The thought made Sherlock kiss John back harder. John made a noise, half-surprise, half-approval, and Sherlock kissed him a bit more desperately, tugging the jumper up over his head. 

In the half-second when Sherlock’s mouth was off of his, John said, “I—” muffled against the wool, but Sherlock captured his mouth with a kiss again, his hands now working on John’s jeans, and John closed his hands in Sherlock’s hair and concentrated on returning the kiss, so apparently whatever he had been about to say hadn’t been that important. 

Sherlock pushed at John’s jeans, which got caught around John’s ankles, so that it only took a bit of a shove to tip him back onto the bed where, luckily, because he was barefoot, he wiggled his jeans the rest of the way off and then readjusted himself on the bed. 

Sherlock pulled the gold medal back off his neck and stuffed it into his pocket and fell on top of John before he was finished shifting himself up. John made a small _oof_ sound that Sherlock captured with his mouth. Sherlock wanted to capture every piece of John, wanted to absorb it all, wanted to spin the two of them so perfectly together that they would never be apart. Even when they _were_ apart they would manage to be together if Sherlock could just uncover the trick of it. 

John was gasping when Sherlock finally let him up for air, his pupils blown as he panted up at him. “Jesus, that was a…gold medal of a kiss.” 

Sherlock thought he even loved it when John made terrible jokes like that. He smiled a bit and moved down John’s body, avoiding the worst of his bruises, kissing and licking and nipping at every other bit of him. 

“I was going to…” breathed John, trailing off when Sherlock mouthed at him through his pants. “I mean…”

Sherlock pulled John’s pants off and flung them away. “Don’t let me interrupt you,” he remarked mildly. “Please, go on.”

“Smug prick,” John told him, and hooked a leg around him, nudging his heel against him to get him moving in the right direction. 

Sherlock grinned and swallowed him down, and John swore and twisted his hands into Sherlock’s hair and then suddenly instead of pulling him closer he was pushing him away, gasping “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.” 

Sherlock pulled back, looking up at him in confusion. “I—”

“Stop,” John gasped again, and used his hands in Sherlock’s hair to pull him back up and into a kiss. It was messy and unfocused, barely a kiss at all, but something about it made Sherlock feel like he couldn’t breathe. “I was going to make tonight all about you,” John murmured against Sherlock’s lips. 

Sherlock shook his head. “But I wanted it all about you.”

“I’m realizing that. So you and I are going to compromise.” John shoved until he got Sherlock onto his back and straddled him. “It’s going to be about _us_. Tonight. Every night. The rest of our lives. Not you, not me, _us_.”

Sherlock stared up at him, trying to decipher him, trying to make him make sense. John was a conundrum wrapped in a riddle and Sherlock wanted to spend the rest of his life trying to comprehend him. 

John just smiled at him, like he wasn’t amazing, and then squirmed his hand into Sherlock’s pocket, pulling out the gold medal and showing it to him. “You’re not taking this off tonight, hear me?” said John, and Sherlock obediently lifted his head so John could drape it around his neck again. 

“That’s more like it,” said John, and then started pulling Sherlock’s clothes off of him, in between distracting kisses. He was moving slowly and languorously, like they had all the time in the world. And maybe they did, Sherlock realized in astonishment. 

He felt like he was floating, like everything around him had disappeared except for John, John wrapping him in love, John's lips and hands, gentle and demanding by turns. Wriggling to get out of his clothing meant that somehow Sherlock found himself back on top, and then, as the kiss continued, back on the bottom, and another roll sent them entirely off the bed and to the floor. Not that it interrupted the kiss for more than half a second. Sherlock thought that he had never before grasped how much you could say through a kiss, how much easier it was to say _everything_ through a kiss. 

Sherlock was mostly undressed by now, and John was entirely undressed, but it didn’t really seem to matter. They kissed and kissed more, passing the emotion back and forth between them, breathless, spaceless, timeless, fearless. Sherlock kept his hands in John’s hair and kissed him even closer. 

John kept one hand wrapped around Sherlock’s gold medal and snaked the other hand down Sherlock’s body, but slowly, lazily, his fingers dancing over the curves of Sherlock’s muscles as they jumped and quivered underneath them. 

“That was,” breathed John into Sherlock’s mouth, “the most beautiful piece of figure skating—I’ve ever seen.”

“You haven’t seen much figure skating,” Sherlock couldn’t help mumbling. 

“Shut up,” said John.

“Yes,” agreed Sherlock, who was much more interested in keeping the kiss going. 

John shifted slightly, managing to lay his hand flat against Sherlock’s abdomen, then walking it downward. When he finally closed it around Sherlock’s erection, Sherlock groaned and had to relinquish the kiss in order to _breathe_. 

“It was gorgeous,” John nuzzled underneath Sherlock’s jaw, stroking relentlessly. “It was perfect. It was sensational. You were amazing out there, fantastic, and all I could think was…” John lifted his head up, and Sherlock managed to meet his gaze, intense and impossibly dark. “You’re mine,” John growled. 

Sherlock gasped and arched up to meet John’s strokes. 

“Aren’t you?” John demanded.

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut, desperate for the orgasm he was hovering on the edge of, and managed, “Yes.” 

“Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine,” said John in his ear, and the climax was a rush of buzzing white over him, like crashing along ice, skidding along it, unable to stop as it whooshed you along. 

When the world had settled back down around Sherlock, John was collapsed half on top of him, panting wildly. Sherlock managed to shift enough to adjust his weight more comfortably, settling him a bit closer. 

“Gold medal sex,” John said, around his heaving breaths. 

“When do you think you’ll stop with the gold medal comparisons?” asked Sherlock, resting his head against John’s and thinking he really didn’t mind if he had to live the rest of his life with gold medal comparisons. 

“When will you stop being a gold medal winner?” countered John. 

“Never.”

“Then you have your answer.” John lifted his head up and grinned and kissed Sherlock again, back to gentle and sweet and _lovely_. “Let’s get off this floor and go to bed and don’t you dare take this medal off you. I was so careful to keep it clean.”

“You expect me to sleep with this medal?”

“No, I expect you to sleep with me while wearing the medal.” 

Sherlock sighed and allowed himself to be pulled up and onto the bed. 

John disappeared into the bathroom and reemerged with a flannel, which he used to efficiently clean Sherlock up, and then he tugged the duvet up and over Sherlock. 

“Tucking me into bed?” Sherlock asked, half-amused and half-touched. 

“Yes. Stay right there.” John went into the bathroom again, came back, and crawled under the duvet, snuggling against Sherlock. “Okay. Now we can fall asleep. And hopefully I won’t drool on your gold medal.”

Sherlock smiled into John’s tousled hair. “Thank you for not combing your hair after you showered,” he murmured. 

“Ah, you noticed that, did you?”

“Of course I did.”

“I did that just for you.”

“Well, that was the deal we made with your sex hair, was it not? Only for me?”

“A gold-medal present.” John shifted to brush a quick kiss over Sherlock’s mouth before settling back down against him. 

Sherlock let his fingers drift over John’s skin and thought of everything that had happened that night. “Did you mean it?” he asked softly, eventually. 

“All of it,” John answered against him drowsily. 

“You don’t even know what I’m referring to.”

John planted a sleepy kiss over Sherlock’s chest. “Doesn’t matter. I meant everything that I’ve said to you tonight. Every single word.” 

Sherlock smiled and looked at the ceiling over his head. Here he was, in a bedroom in the Olympic Village, with a gold medal around his neck, and he’d dreamed of that for so long. What he had never dared to dream of was that he wouldn’t be alone in the bed, that instead he would be sharing the bed with someone who claimed to love him, claimed to want to belong to him, claimed to really mean all of that. 

It was by far the most remarkable part of this experience. 

“At the medal ceremony,” Sherlock began. 

“Mmm?” grunted John, an indication that he should proceed. 

“The whole time…all I could think of was what you’d said to me.” 

There was a moment of silence, and then John pulled himself up to look down at Sherlock. “You’re a very silly person,” he said finally. 

Sherlock blinked at him. 

“I fell in love with you the first night I met you. It’s why I couldn’t stay away. You should have figured that out much sooner. How silly of you to spend your entire gold medal ceremony marveling at something so very obvious.” 

Sherlock stared up at him. And then he smiled. 

***

Sherlock dozed off and on through the night, his head much too full to sleep. Anyways, avoiding sleep meant that he got to be awake when John woke, rubbing his head lazily against Sherlock’s chest and stretching. 

“Good morning,” Sherlock said. 

“Do you ever sleep?” mumbled John. 

“I slept all night. Like a baby.”

“Liar,” said John good-naturedly, and stretched again and cuddled closer. “What time is it?” 

“Not time to get up yet.”

There was knocking on their door. 

“Tell that to Irene,” remarked John drily. 

“That’s not Irene. Irene wouldn’t knock.”

“Sherlock?” called Lestrade’s voice. “I know you’re in there.” Pause. “Unless you climbed out the window.”

“Lestrade doesn’t know the state of the drainpipes,” commented John softly. 

Sherlock groaned a bit. “If we’re quiet, he’ll go away.”

There was more knocking. “I’m not going to go away!” shouted Lestrade. 

John chuckled and kissed Sherlock lightly. “I’ve got to take a shower and get ready for practice anyway. Go and talk to your coach.” John slid out of bed and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. 

Sherlock sighed, then pulled himself out of bed, wrapped himself in the duvet, and opened the bedroom door, glowering at Lestrade. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Of course! I’ve been calling and texting you! It’s the day after you won a gold medal, there’s a ton of press requests and—”

Sherlock blinked at him. “Have you lost your mind? I don’t do press.”

Lestrade paused. “I thought you might want to, though, after last night.”

“And say what? They’re only going to ask me about John, and that’s none of their business.”

“They want to ask you about your skating, Sherlock. That beautiful program—”

Sherlock shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about skating, either. I’m done with skating.”

“You’re retiring?”

“Of course I’m retiring. I wanted to retire years ago, remember? Only everyone kept talking about gold medals. Well, now I’m here and I got one and I’m done.”

“So what are you going to do?” asked Lestrade almost fearfully. 

“A great deal of cocaine,” said Sherlock scathingly. 

“Sherlock.”

“Oh, Lestrade, relax. I’m going to start over.”

“Start over doing what?”

“Well, it’s been apparent to me for a while now that the police are out of their depth so frequently that they could easily keep me busy.”

“You’re going to…solve crimes?”

“Consulting detective. It’s going to be fun. You could come along, if you want.”

“Solve crimes with you?”

“You could join the Met.” 

“I’m a figure skating coach.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Just as qualified to be a detective as any of the police I’ve worked with.” 

Lestrade, after a moment, shook his head. “And what about John? Is he going to solve crimes with you?”

“No, he’s going to play hockey. I can solve crimes anywhere, Lestrade.”

“Got it all figured out, don’t you?”

Well, he’d spent all night thinking about it, of course he did. He didn’t even bother to answer such an obvious question. 

“Get dressed and come to breakfast,” commanded Lestrade, after a moment. 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and really _looked_ at him and then smiled. “Ah, you’re having breakfast with Mycroft and my parents.” 

“We’re having a celebratory breakfast for you,” Lestrade grumbled. 

“No, you’re having a meet-the-parents breakfast.” Sherlock couldn’t help it: John Watson loved him, he’d won a gold medal, and now Lestrade and Mycroft were going to suffer through an uncomfortable breakfast. It was almost enough to make Sherlock want to tag along and suffer through his parents’ fussing. 

Almost. 

“Thank you very much but I’m afraid breakfast would interrupt my scheduled sex with John,” said Sherlock, and swung the door closed and went to join John in the shower. 

***

John was inundated with questions about Sherlock’s gold medal at practice. “What does it look like?” “Is it heavy?” “How does it feel?” “Has he taken it off yet?” “Did he shower with it?” “Do you think he could bring it before the game tomorrow and shake it over our heads?”

“What would that accomplish?” John asked, amused. 

“I don’t know, it might spread some gold medal luck around.”

John shook his head and thought what a real relief it was that none of his teammates had batted an eyelash at this insane Olympic thing he was having here. He said, “I’ll ask Sherlock,” and walked back to the skating house. 

Where he was met by Donovan, who snapped, “Get the freak under control.”

John blinked. “What?” 

And then, from upstairs, came an enormous commotion. It sounded as if someone had decided to smash dishes all over the floor. 

John took the stairs two at a time, to find Sherlock…smashing dishes all over the floor of their bedroom. 

“What the hell are you doing?” John asked, surprised. 

"I am studying the pattern of shards left behind by these dishes." Sherlock flung another one down. 

John took a startled step back, out of range. “Why are you doing that?” 

“Because I am _bored_.” Sherlock dramatically flung himself onto the bed. “I’m going to start throwing them out the window next.” 

“You won’t be happy until you kill someone,” snarled Donovan, having followed John up the stairs. 

“Why are you still _here_?” retorted Sherlock. “Your competition is over, you didn’t win anything, go home.” 

Donovan marched off down the hallway. 

John sighed and picked his way over the porcelain disaster area that was their bedroom and considered the sulking Sherlock on the bed. He thought of what Sherlock had just said to Donovan about going home. Sherlock had no further reason to be here, aside from John. 

John swallowed and ventured carefully, “You could go home if you wanted.”

Sherlock looked at him abruptly. “Do you want me to go home?”

John decided to be honest. “No, I don’t want you to go home, but if you’re miserable here—”

“I’m not miserable here,” Sherlock corrected him quickly. 

John looked pointedly at the broken dishes all around them. 

“I’m just _bored_ ,” muttered Sherlock and looked stubbornly up at the ceiling. “There’s no _crime_ here.”

To everyone else that would be a good thing, but John understood that Sherlock needed something to occupy his time, and crime was his hobby. 

“Well, let’s think of what there is here.” John tried to remember what the schedule of events was. “I think there’s bobsledding going on. You could go watch.” 

Sherlock gave him a baleful look. “I don’t understand how bobsledding is even a _sport_.”

“Fair enough,” said John. 

Sherlock sighed and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

“I have an idea,” announced John, and walked over to close the door. “Let’s have sex.”

That startled a laugh out of Sherlock, which pleased John. He came back over to the bed and straddled Sherlock without any sort of preamble. 

Sherlock looked up at him and said, “I’m really very happy. Here with you. I just…get bored sometimes.”

“It’s fine, Sherlock. Tomorrow there’ll be a hockey game for you to go to. The rest of the team wants you to come and shake your gold medal over them.”

“What would that accomplish?” 

“Superstition,” said John. 

“I’m going to solve crimes whilst you play hockey.”

“No crimes here, remember? It’s very boring and dull here in the Olympic Village, remember?”

Sherlock shook his head. “No, I mean after the Olympics. In case you were worried that I’m always going to be this difficult.” 

John stared down at him, processing that. 

Sherlock noticed, his eyes going a bit wide. “Oh. Unless you’d rather I didn’t— I mean— You’re right, this is just…an Olympic…fling…thing…and—”

“Shut up,” John said, and kissed him quiet. “I told you: I love you,” he murmured against his lips. “This isn’t just a fling.” John sat back up. “I just…haven’t been thinking past the Olympics. I’m barely thinking past the next game, to be honest.” 

“Right,” said Sherlock. “Yes. Of course. Me, too.”

John chuckled. “That’s clearly not true. Considering the way your head works, you’ve probably got forever planned out, including every single contingency along the way.”

Sherlock’s eyes were steady and solemn on his. “If I did, would that be a problem?”

“Absolutely not,” said John, and leaned down and kissed him. 

***

Sherlock’s plan had been to avoid his parents forever, but the following day, after John had gone off to go through his mysterious pre-game rituals, Sherlock went for a very long walk around the very boring Olympic Village and came back to his parents sitting in the lounge conversing with a gleeful-looking Irene. 

“Don’t you have a competition tonight to get ready for?” snapped Sherlock, irritated. 

Irene smiled and winked at him and gushed over how lovely it had been to meet his parents. 

“Such a lovely girl,” Sherlock’s mother said as she departed. “I admit for a little while I had hope for the two of you.” 

Sherlock just looked at her. Sometimes he could not understand how he had come from these people. No, _all_ the time he couldn’t understand it. 

“But John is just delightful,” she continued. “Which was why we want to come and take the two of you out.”

“For a celebratory dinner,” added his father. 

“We’ve barely got to celebrate at all,” continued his mother. 

“Where _is_ your gold?” asked his father. 

“I can’t believe you took it off,” said his mother. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and said, “John has a game tonight.”

“A game?” his mother echoed, blankly. 

“Yes. A hockey game. He’s a hockey player. Remember?” 

"Oh, of course! How rude of us to forget! As if he hasn’t a life of his own and was only here for you!”

“The hockey game is tonight?” added his father. 

Hadn’t he just said that? “Yes,” he answered shortly. “So I really can’t—”

“Oh, of course you’ll have to go to the game,” said his mother. 

“Of course,” agreed his father. 

Did they ever get tired of agreeing with each other? Sherlock wondered. And then wondered if, thirty years from that moment, he and John would still be together and would just walk around finishing each other’s sentences and agreeing with each other. 

Sherlock wanted to detest this vision of his future, but it seemed abruptly and curiously alluring to him. Was it actually possible that he wasn’t horrified by the prospect of turning into his parents? 

Sherlock was so startled by this idea that he missed entirely what his parents were saying to him, until he realized they were both wearing that look of beaming satisfaction that meant they’d settled something in a way he wouldn’t like. 

“What?” he asked in dread. 

“We said we’d come with you. Of course,” said his mother. 

“You… You don’t like hockey,” he pointed out. 

“Neither do you,” she countered. 

That was beside the point. He liked _John_. “You’ll not understand it and I haven’t—”

“We’re going for John, not for hockey,” said his mother, as if that was intended to be reassuring. 

Sherlock huffed out his displeasure and narrowed his eyes and said, “I don’t want to interfere with John’s game.”

His mother looked alarmed. “Do you think we’d distract him? Is that why his own parents aren’t here?”

Actually, Sherlock realized, he didn’t know anything about John’s parents. Nothing about his family. John never mentioned any. Which was striking at a first and only Olympics. If family didn’t tag along, normally the athletes spent their time lamenting that their family hadn’t been able to tag along. But John had clawed his way to the Olympics and had evidently brought no one along with him for the ride, spent all his time catering to Sherlock’s mad whims. 

Sherlock blinked and looked at his parents and thought of John, who was by far the best person in the universe and should have been the most cherished and beloved of family members and instead had no one there to fawn over him. Except for Sherlock’s parents. Who seemed eager to take on the job, and Sherlock was eager for them to have someone to fawn over who wasn’t him. 

So Sherlock heard himself say, “I think your coming to the game is a good idea.”


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Sherlock felt a little like an idiot, waiting around by the athletes’ entrance to the hockey venue. And then John came out, dressed for the game but not yet in skates, and Sherlock’s brain may have gone a tiny bit offline at the sight of that. 

John said, “Hey,” leaned forward to kiss him, and then drew back without meeting his lips. “Really?”

“Really what?” asked Sherlock, confused by the question. 

“The hockey uniform does it for you?” 

Sherlock blinked, alarmed he was that transparent. “Certainly not,” he sniffed. “What would make you think that?”

John grinned at him. “You’re an open book, you idiot.” He kissed him then, quick but fond. “When the Olympics are over, I’ll let you have your way with me in a locker room one night, how’s that?”

“Absolutely unnecessary,” said Sherlock, whilst simultaneously thinking it was the best idea he’d ever heard. 

John continued to look amused. “Shut up, you love the idea. Did you bring your medal?”

Sherlock went to hand it across to him. 

“No, no, no, you’re coming with it.”

“No, you can just bring it in and—”

“Don’t be silly, it’s _your_ good luck, having me wave it over everyone wouldn’t mean anything. And, anyway, everyone wants to meet you.”

Which was what he’d been afraid of. “That’s not—”

“Stop it, they’ll love you.”

John was not a stupid person, so Sherlock didn’t know why he insisted on thinking stupid things. “That’s probably not true—”

“It is true. I know them and I know you and it’ll be fine.” John settled his hand in Sherlock’s and tugged him along, into the venue. 

Sherlock felt slightly ill at the prospect of all this. He despised small talk and so had never even tried to develop the knack for it. What could he possibly say to all of John’s teammates? _Make sure you watch that John doesn’t take a puck to his head?_ That was basically the only thing Sherlock wanted to say to them. 

“Here he is!” John announced, pulling him into the locker room. 

There were effusive greetings, an impossible number of people wanting to shake his hand, as if they’d been waiting for this meeting. _Congratulations_ , they said, over and over, and Sherlock couldn’t think of what he was supposed to be saying in answer to that, because John next to him looked pleased as punch, as if he was actually proud of the ability to have produced Sherlock Holmes in this locker room. Sherlock tried to think of the last time someone other than his parents had looked proud of his existence, and utterly failed. 

Sherlock had still been holding his gold medal in one hand, and in response to requests to see it, he held it out. No one tried to take it from him, but they ooh’d and aah’d and asked him if it was everything he had expected it to be. 

Sherlock looked at the gold medal in his hand and said, honestly, “I don’t know, really; it pales next to John.”

Which provoked a round of teasing toward John, and John flushed pink but didn’t look displeased, and Sherlock thought it possible the teasing was good-natured and hoped that that hadn’t been the wrong thing to say. 

“So go on,” said one of the hockey players to him, eventually—father of three, divorced, allergic to penicillin, overly fond of nachos. 

Everyone looked at him expectantly. 

Sherlock wondered what social cue he’d missed this time. He glanced furtively at John and said, “Go on with what?”

“Spreading your gold-medal mojo,” shouted someone from the back of the crowd, and there was a chorus of affirmation. 

Sherlock regarded them all blankly. “There’s not an actual magic spell.” He looked at John and pitched his voice lower. “They know there’s no actual magic spell, right?”

John smiled at him. “They know. Just wave it around a bit.”

Sherlock, feeling like an idiot, waved it around and said, haltingly, “May this gold-medal magic bring luck to your hockey team.” 

There was gratitude, and eventually, to Sherlock’s relief, he found John tugging him back out of the locker room and into the hallways. 

“Thank you,” John said, and backed him up against the wall and kissed him. “You hated that.” He brushed his nose against his. “So thank you.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” said Sherlock, honestly, and hooked his arm more snugly around John’s waist to pull him closer. 

“Are you staying to watch?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it. And, er, my parents are here, too.”

John looked surprised. “Your parents?”

“They insisted. If you’d rather they didn’t—”

John’s face was soft; Sherlock thought it was possible he was actually touched. “No, I don’t mind. In fact, I think it’s very sweet of them.” 

“They don’t know the first thing about hockey,” said Sherlock. 

“Neither do you.”

“I read up on it on the Internet the night I met you.”

“That makes you an expert, huh?”

“Yes,” responded Sherlock. 

John shook his head, chuckling, and then said, “Wish me luck.” 

Sherlock stuck his gold medal in his pocket, and cupped his hands around John’s face, and looked at him solemnly. “I love you,” he said. 

John smiled. “It’s all very good,” he answered. 

***

When hockey was going well, it was like planned choreography, as if they’d known all along exactly how the game was going to go and they were simply executing the moves they’d already planned. 

This hockey game was going extremely well. 

At the start of the third period they were up three goals. John was skating, his eyes on the puck that Nottingley was working down the ice, waiting for the pass he knew was going to come. And that was when the player barreled into him from behind. It was hard enough to knock the wind out of him, hard enough to throw him completely off-balance, and John had a sudden flashing moment of panicked déjà vu that coalesced into the blinding thought: _Do not land on your shoulder!!_ And then he managed, somehow, to get his hands out in front of him. 

Which was almost worse. His gloves absorbed some of the impact against the ice, but the contact still jarred its way up his arms and seemed to rattle around in his brain. Damn it, his wrists were going to be sore for days, and it was the _Olympics_ , and there was no way whoever it was hadn’t known that he had just recovered from a severe mental block caused by a from-behind hit. 

John pulled himself up and turned immediately to face whoever it was, furious. 

The referee had skated over and was no doubt issuing a penalty, but what John saw was that the player actually _smirked_ at him, and that fury caused John to throw the punch before he knew he was going to. Which was not the best idea for either his wrist or his continued playing time that game, but it felt pretty damn good all the same. Which, of course, caused the player to throw a punch back, and John stupidly didn’t jerk out of the way in time and ended up catching the blow hard on his cheekbone. 

The ref, snarling with displeasure, snapped out further penalties. 

John waved away the concern of his teammates and, annoyed with himself and his aching wrists and his stinging cheek, skated over to the penalty box and sat out his time. 

And the coach put him right back into the game, as soon as he could, which John appreciated because he didn’t want to get caught up in another weeks-long ordeal of getting his confidence back on the ice. He took the puck and made a shot at the net right away, just to show himself he could, and then, as the icing on the cake, he got himself an assist for their fourth goal of the game. 

So the game could have been worse but John still felt like a little bit of an idiot. He assured the team doctor he was fine, but he wrapped his wrists anyway and told him to put ice on his cheek, and John jerked his head in annoyance and was in a terrible mood as he left the hockey venue. 

And then he saw Sherlock waiting for him. 

And somehow he felt better. He was still viciously annoyed with himself, but it retreated the tiniest bit when faced with Sherlock. 

So he walked straight up to him and hugged him tightly, pressing his face into his neck. 

“I thought it was a good game,” remarked Sherlock, holding him there. 

“It was stupid of me to throw the punch,” muttered John. 

“Don’t be hard on yourself. It was better for you to throw the punch than get all caught up in your own head again. I don’t relish teaching you how to skate again.”

“Shut up,” said John, and sighed against him, and then stepped back and lifted up his wrists so that Sherlock could tut over them. 

Sherlock did not tut over them. He said, “That is an unfortunate blow to my bondage plans for the evening.” 

John laughed. He couldn’t help it. And he felt better about everything. 

“I must warn you,” Sherlock continued. 

John’s stomach dropped a bit. “Oh, God. About what?” 

“My parents have gone back to the skating house. My mother is convinced that your injuries must need tending to.”

Sherlock delivered this sentence with a great deal of dread. John didn’t understand why that level of dread was called for. “You don’t mean that euphemistically, right?”

Sherlock looked immediately horrified. “Oh my God, why would you _say_ such a thing?” 

“Just checking, because you looked like your mother wanting to fuss a bit was the end of the world.”

“Well, I thought it _was_ , until you had to bring up something _worse_. Now I have to delete it from my mind palace.”

“Do what from where?” asked John, bemused. 

“Never mind. If you like, we can try to make a run for it.”

“Let’s go to the skating house. I don’t mind your mother fussing a bit.” John started walking slowly, Sherlock falling into step behind him. “In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I wanted _you_ to fuss a bit, but you just brought up bondage.” John nudged him playfully with his shoulder. 

“You’d enjoy the bondage more than the fussing,” said Sherlock. 

“Promises, promises,” said John. 

***

Sherlock sat with his laptop open, ostensibly seeking any information on any further hockey-penalty repercussions he could urge Mycroft to deploy against the man who had hit John. But really he was watching his mother cluck her tongue over the rakish black eye John was sporting. 

“It looks worse than it feels,” said John. “I swear.”

He was lying, thought Sherlock. Actually the bruise was throbbing with pain. Sherlock could see the evidence of it on John’s face. But he could also see that, oddly, John didn’t mind being kept up in this crowded kitchen with Sherlock’s parents. John’s parents, wherever they were, had never been fussers, Sherlock deduced, and John had always rather wanted fussing parents. Sherlock filed that information away. He couldn’t imagine wanting parents who fussed over you, but he supposed it all looked different when you’d never had it. 

“All the same,” said his mother, and carefully pressed a flannel full of ice against the bruise, “you’d think what he did to you would be illegal.”

“It _is_ illegal,” said John ruefully. “He got punished for it.”

“Not nearly enough,” said Sherlock’s mother forcefully. 

“Are you involved in a lot of fighting, John?” asked his father, sounding endlessly curious. 

“I try not to be,” said John. “I don’t find this particular aspect of it to be very fun.” 

“Plus,” added Sherlock’s mother. She was combing down the hair that had been ruffled from the game and that John had never combed because of how distracted he’d been with his injuries. Sherlock was annoyed with her for combing it down. “You wouldn’t want anything to damage this handsome face of yours.” 

“ _Mother_ ,” said Sherlock, appalled. 

“What?” She gave him an innocent look. “He _is_ very handsome, Sherlock, don’t even pretend you didn’t notice that.” 

Sherlock, grumbling, clicked some links on his computer at random. 

John said, “It’s true; Sherlock’s very shallow.” 

Sherlock’s mother laughed merrily as if John were the most hilarious person she’d ever met. 

John _was_ hilarious, but that was no reason to laugh like _that_ , thought Sherlock, and clicked about some more. 

“Where are you from, John?” she asked conversationally. 

“Minnesota,” answered John. 

Sherlock’s mother said, “Is that one of your states that allows gay marriage?”

Sherlock closed his laptop firmly and said, “Time for everyone to go.”

“But, Sherlock—”

“Lovely to see you, but feel free to fly home and I’ll stop by after the Olympics are over,” said Sherlock, ushering them out of the house. 

His mother frowned at him. “You never stop by.”

“I’ll make him stop by!” John called from behind them. 

Sherlock threw him a _not-helping_ look. John did not look the least bit repentant. 

“Good night,” Sherlock said to his parents, ushering them out the door. 

His mother hissed at him, “You’ve got a good one there.”

“Yes,” agreed Sherlock in exasperation. “I know. I’m endeavoring not to muck it up.” 

His mother blinked in evident surprise, which confused him enough that he didn’t slam the door shut. 

And then she said, “I didn’t mean it like that, darling. I meant: _Finally_. You found someone who deserves you.” She laid a hand against his cheek, and he was stunned enough by the whole thing that he didn’t even jerk away. “He makes you marvelously happy, love. It would break my heart, but if you must, you ought to move to Minnesota with him.” 

Because he had been thinking along those same lines, he could think of nothing to say. It wasn’t very often that he and his mother had similar views of his future. 

And then his mother ruined it by saying, “You can get married and adopt lots of babies.”

Sherlock dislodged her hand from his cheek and rolled his eyes and said, “ _Mother_ ,” and then closed the door on them both. 

And turned to find John watching him with amusement from the kitchen doorway, leaning against it. “Your parents are wonderful.” 

“They’re…” Sherlock waved his hand, unsure what he wanted to say they were. 

“No,” John said firmly, straightening from the doorway and walking over to him. “They’re wonderful. You’re lucky.”

Sherlock studied him. “Your parents are idiots.”

John chuckled. “My parents are dead.”

“They were idiots before they died.”

John grew serious, looking thoughtful. “I just think they weren’t especially good parents. You have very good parents.”

Sherlock pulled John into his arms and changed the subject away from comparisons to John’s parents, not wanting John to get sad thinking about them. “She’s going to start sending you suggestions for china patterns tomorrow, just wait.”

“I’d be fine with that,” said John. 

Sherlock stared at him for a moment, and then kissed him back against the wall, and was just settling himself into the kiss when the front door opened and Irene said, "Well, at least someone's getting lucky tonight." 

Sherlock, annoyed, stopped kissing John and looked over at her. 

She held up a medal and said, unnecessarily, “Silver.” 

“Oh,” said John, where Sherlock still had him mostly pressed against the wall. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said, and she did, in fact, look cheerful. “This one was a good one. I’m happy with it. We can’t all of us win gold medals all at the same time, can we? You two have fun now.” She winked at them as she walked up the stairs. 

“She seems okay,” John remarked. 

“I think she’s moved on to other games in her head,” Sherlock replied. 

“Where were we here?” asked John, fisting a hand into Sherlock’s shirt to pull him closer. 

“Just about to go upstairs, I think,” said Sherlock. 

“Good call,” said John. 

***

John took the next day entirely off, at the orders of the coach. Because John felt as if he’d been hit by a truck, John was okay with that. 

John felt poorly enough that his initial impulse to spend a day in bed having lazy sex was out of the question and would simply have to be saved for a future date in their relationship. So instead John coaxed Sherlock into going to watch skicross with him. Largely because it was the event that was happening on the hill that day. 

John thought the skicross was amazing. Sherlock mainly spent his time speculating about the gruesome injuries that could surely result from such activity. 

“You could be a sports doctor, you know,” John remarked, as they made their way back to the Olympic Village. “Instead of solving crimes.”

Sherlock snorted. “Do I seem like the nurturing type?”

“No,” John smiled. “You’re very careful not to _seem_ like the nurturing type.”

Sherlock paused. “What does that mean?”

“That I’m on to you.”

“There’s nothing to be on to,” Sherlock denied. 

“I beg to different, there’s a lot to be on,” said John, waggling his eyebrows. 

Sherlock stared at him. “Sometimes you make absolutely no sense.”

John laughed and took his hand, because frankly he couldn’t resist. “I thought about becoming a doctor, you know.” 

“Did you? When?”

“When I was a kid. If I couldn’t play hockey.”

“You would be a good doctor.”

John scoffed. “I couldn’t even fix my own head, never mind other people’s.”

“I’ll worry about your head for you.”

“Sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” said John. 

“You choose the oddest adjectives to describe me.”

“Nonsense, you’re known far and wide for your sweet nothings.” 

“Ah, is that another thing you’re ‘on to’?”

“It’s a secret between us. Like my sex hair.”

“Your sex hair is a much better secret than any secret involving me,” said Sherlock.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Sherlock had a complicated spreadsheet that was an analysis of all the teams left in the hockey fight. He walked John through it for the quarterfinal game. John understood only some of it, because most of it seemed to involve a complicated statistical analysis about the physics of the friction of the ice and its diminishing returns over the time of gameplay, which didn’t seem to John to be too incredibly helpful for winning hockey games. 

Nevertheless, they did win, handily. John told Sherlock it was because of his gold medal magic, and Sherlock said, “And my spreadsheets,” and John said, “Yes, they were amazing.” Sherlock beamed and looked so pleased that John willingly sat through an entire afternoon’s lecture about their semifinal matchup. 

Semifinals, and now the gold was so close John felt like they could all taste it. Two games, just two more, and then there would be a gold medal. That was all they had to do. 

Sherlock said he had run the numbers all different ways and they always came out victorious, headed for the gold-medal match. John didn’t know if he found that reassuring or not. 

But Sherlock turned out to be right: They won the semifinals, a nail-biter of a game in which the single goal was scored by Mike late in the third period. 

“That was closer than it should have been, statistically,” Sherlock told him afterward. 

Sherlock’s parents, who had been faithfully attending every game, told him he had skated very well. 

John thought he just wanted it to be over. He wanted his gold medal. 

But when it was over, he would have his gold medal, and there would be the Closing Ceremony, and then the Olympics would be over, and he would fly back to America, and Sherlock would fly to England. John couldn’t sleep the night before the gold medal game, his stomach twisted into knots over everything. 

Eventually, he slid out of bed and walked downstairs. Irene was in the living room, watching what looked like a telenovela. 

“Can’t sleep?” she asked. 

He shook his head and sat next to her. “You sticking around to the end?” Because Donovan and Anderson had already left, much to Sherlock’s glee. 

“Well, I want to take part in the exhibition.”

“The what?”

“The skating exhibition. For the medal winners. You know.”

He didn’t know. He’d have to ask Sherlock about that. He said, “Yeah. Of course.”

“I’m so curious what Sherlock’s going to skate at that, to be honest. Does he have some other secret program up his sleeve?” 

“I’m not allowed to tell,” said John. Also, he had no idea what Irene was talking about. 

Irene shut off the telenovela and stood and stretched. “I’m off to bed. And you should try to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.” 

“Yeah,” John agreed, although there was no way he was going to be able to sleep. “Good night.” 

Irene tossed him the remote control and went up the stairs. 

John didn’t turn the television on. He sprawled on the couch and looked up at the ceiling and worried. 

Eventually someone came down the stairs. 

Sherlock, who said, “Are you going to spend the entire night on that uncomfortable couch?”

“I can’t sleep,” said John. 

Sherlock yawned and crawled onto the couch with John. Which was sweet, but didn’t do anything to help the couch’s comfortableness. “It’s just a hockey game, John. Just think of it as another hockey game.”

Not why he couldn’t sleep. John sighed and combed at Sherlock’s curls and said, “What’s this skating exhibition thing?”

“Oh, it’s stupid. It’s supposed to be a celebration. The medal winners are invited to skate for fun, basically.”

“What are you going to skate to?”

“I haven’t decided. I thought I might do something from Berlioz. _Les Troyens_. There’s some lovely music from when Didon stabs herself.”

“That’s what you’re skating to for fun? An operatic suicide?” 

“Well, what would _you_ skate to for fun?”

“I don’t know. Bowie?” suggested John, naming the first artist to come to his head. 

“Hmph,” said Sherlock, and then rolled off him. “Come to bed,” he commanded, and reached out for John’s hand. 

John allowed himself to be led upstairs and into bed, although he still didn’t think he was going to sleep. 

“You’re a very good hockey player,” said Sherlock, curled against him, “who’s played a lot of really good hockey lately, and you just need to play one more good game.” 

And John finally admitted it. “That’s not what’s keeping me up.”

Sherlock was silent. 

“Sherlock, what are we going to do when this is over?” 

There was another moment of silence. Then Sherlock said, “John,” and kissed his chest. “We’re going to do _everything_. Now go to sleep.”

And John was amazed to find that he could. 

***

Sherlock insisted on walking John to the hockey venue. John said he didn’t have to, but Sherlock insisted. In the end John was grateful because Sherlock kept up a steady stream of chatter, mostly about how boring and hateful everyone around them was, but it served its purpose because it distracted John, kept him out of his own head. 

“Thanks for this,” John said when they reached the hockey venue. 

“You persist in thanking me for things that don’t necessitate gratitude,” remarked Sherlock. 

“I know. Think you can live with that?”

“I shall endeavor to,” sighed Sherlock, mock-long-suffering. 

John grinned at him, then said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, anything.” 

“How much of it do you remember? Of your gold medal skate?”

Sherlock considered. “There’s a way in which I remember every single second, and a way in which I remember absolutely none of it. I think mostly what I remember was that you’d told me you loved me, and that every thought in my head was of that, and the rest of it didn’t matter. But I had the vague impression, even though I was barely paying attention, that the ice was doing all the work for me. I don’t know, I feel like you spend an entire lifetime in our sports making the ice do what you want it to do for you, and that for the first time that night we were finally actually partners.” Sherlock shook himself suddenly, as if he hadn’t realized how much he’d fallen into a reverie. “But that’s ridiculous,” he said briskly. “A flight of fancy.”

“No,” said John, marveling that every time he thought he was as in love with Sherlock as a person could possibly be, he went and fell a little more. “It was beautiful and perfect.”

“The point is this,” said Sherlock gravely, and took a step closer to John to crowd him just a bit. “You might not remember with clarity every single thing you do this game. But you will remember how it _feels_. Cherish that.”

John nodded. “Gold medal wisdom.”

“I can’t wait until you have a gold medal and I can refer to everything you do with that ‘gold medal’ adjective.”

“I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll never get tired of it.”

“We’ll see about that,” Sherlock said, and kissed him. 

“Now, now, break it up, gold medal to win here!” called McNulty, walking by them on his way into the venue. 

“This is why team sports are annoying, no one ever interrupts a good snog in the figure skating world,” said Sherlock. 

John chuckled and gave him one last quick kiss before ducking away from him. 

“Go and win a gold medal!” Sherlock called after him. 

John raised a hand in acknowledgment and took a deep breath and stepped into the venue. 

***

John had thought that the entirety of the game would be a blur to him, but instead the opposite was true. Everything seemed sharper, brighter, more vivid than any other game he’d ever played. When he was watching, everyone’s movements on the ice seemed like precise choreography seared into his brain. In a weird way, Sherlock had seemed freer and less organized in his emotional free violin program, while this particular game seemed textbook-perfect. And when he was playing, things seemed to happen in slow motion. The puck seemed enormous to him, so obviously stark against the white of the ice, as it slid between sticks. Afterward, John always felt like he could remember every detail of the game, from the crisp sound of the skates against the ice to every hard breath and grunt from the players around him to the smell of sweat tempered by the sharpness of the ice underneath. 

Sherlock’s analysis had been that the game was going to be close, although John watched his team jump out to a quick, early lead in the first minute of play and then add to it with another goal late in the first and a goal in the second. 

And then things started to fall apart in the third. The other team scored one goal, and then a second. And then there was a missed penalty call that resulted in a third goal, and suddenly there was a brawl on the ice that had the refs throwing penalties left and right. 

John had been on the bench at the time, and he watched the fight with frustration. He knew why it had broken out, because giving up three goals in a period to let the game tie up was enough to make any team press into irritated violence. But John still had to grit his teeth because they couldn’t afford to play short-handed for the long period of time that was going to be assessed, and it had been the first line out there playing at the time, making matters worse. 

Clearly thinking that the group that had been on the ice had had enough, the coach switched them out, cycling the next line in. Which meant that John entered the tumult. 

John skated onto the ice thinking that what he needed to do was keep them from getting the puck to their net. They needed to keep this game tied and then recover from the disadvantage that all of the penalties had put them in in overtime, hopefully. 

But then the most amazing thing happened. Which was that, while he was trying to keep them away from his net, he suddenly found himself in possession of the puck, and he suddenly found himself with a clear path to the goal. 

And that was, afterward, when things got blurry to him. He could never remember exactly how it all fell into place for him, he could just remember that the connection from the puck he had control of to the net he was aiming for was a like a tunnel, like a vacuum. There was no way, he saw suddenly, that he would miss. There was no way. 

He took the shot without any conscious thought about it, no memory of drawing the stick back or guiding it forward. All he knew was that the puck went flinging its way through the air, and then it was in the net, and then there was the proclamation of a goal, and then he found himself engulfed by the teammates on the ice with him, and it dawned on him, just at that moment, that he had just scored them the go-ahead goal in the gold medal game of the Olympics. 

And the thing was, when it was his turn on the bench again, and he sat there sucking down water and being congratulated, he felt giddy with delight, and the person he most wanted to share it with was Sherlock. But the crowd was a sea of faces and John had no idea where Sherlock might even be sitting, so he could do nothing but sit there and wait anxiously through the rest of the game and fantasize about falling into Sherlock’s arms afterward like a starry-eyed teenager. 

_It could all go wrong, it could all go wrong, it could all go wrong_ , chanted John in his head, watching the game play out in front of him, until the moment when the buzzer sounded and he suddenly found himself in the rush of players celebrating on the ice, falling over each other. It was all dizzy hysteria and giddy laughter and by the time John wriggled his way out of the celebration he couldn’t find Sherlock in the sea of faces. He gave in and changed, assuming that Sherlock would be waiting for him outside the venue so they could walk to the medal ceremony together. 

Except that there was a text on his phone when he checked it. _Chaos–meet you at the ceremony. –SH_

He was disappointed, but he was also smiling when he texted back: _Thanks for signing that, relieved to know it’s you._ He thought he might never stop smiling for the rest of his life. 

He walked with the rest of the team over to the medal ceremony platform, and they jumped onto the platform together when they were announced, and John tried to remember every moment of the national anthem, but really he spent most of the time trying to see over everyone’s head to try to spot Sherlock in the crowd. 

When it was over, he went through another round of congratulatory hugs with everyone and then Charbonneau said, “Hey, isn’t that your figure skater?” 

Which it was, waiting just off to the side, his hands deep in the pockets of the dramatic wool coat John had first seen the night of the opening ceremony and now couldn’t imagine Sherlock without. Behind Sherlock, his parents waved enthusiastically, clearly delighted, and John’s heart suddenly threatened to burst right out of his chest. Which wasn’t necessarily a pleasant image but he’d _won a gold medal_ , and _that amazing man over there claimed to love him_ , and _his wonderful parents had basically adopted him and were happy for the good things that happened to him_ , and John had started out this Olympics with nothing and had ended up with _this_. 

Because he thought he was going to cry, he dashed quickly over to Sherlock and launched himself into Sherlock’s arms and pressed his face into his shoulder. 

“Congratulations,” Sherlock said, folding him into the embrace. 

John nodded against him, not trusting himself to speak, definitely not trusting himself to lift his head. 

“Congratulations, John!” said Sherlock’s mother, rubbing at his back. 

“Yes, congratulations!” added his father. “And you got the winning goal!”

“It was so well done and exciting. We’re definitely hockey fans now. We’re going to follow you around like groupies.” 

“I’ve tried to talk them out of this,” Sherlock’s voice rumbled close against John’s ear. 

John choked out a laugh and managed to lift his head and look at Sherlock. 

“It was a good hockey game,” Sherlock told him with a grin. 

“You never watch hockey,” John rejoined. 

“Shut up,” said Sherlock. 

“Gold medal magic man!” sang McNulty, basically launching himself on top of Sherlock, who staggered backward in reaction. “Are you coming out to drink in celebration with us?”

“Oh, are we going out drinking?”

McNulty gave John a _you’re-not-really-that-stupid_ look. “We just won a gold medal. What do you think?”

John looked back at Sherlock. “You should come.”

Sherlock shook his head a bit. “No, you should go. Enjoy yourself, have fun, I’ll see you later.”

“You’re sure,” said John uncertainly, feeling a bit like he was abandoning him. 

“Absolutely,” said Sherlock, and gave him a light kiss for good measure. 

“Excellent,” exulted McNulty. “We go forth to conquer!”

***

Sherlock was poking through housing options in Minnesota and wondering what sort of place John lived in when John finally staggered in. He stood swaying magnificently in the doorway for a moment, his gold medal around his neck swaying in time with him, before saying, with what looked like a very deliberate effort, “Hi.”

Sherlock smiled. “Hello.”

John walked into the room and collapsed onto the bed. 

Sherlock looked down at him, amused. “Good night?”

“I think I’m drunk,” mumbled John. 

“Excellent deduction.”

“I don’t think I’ve been this drunk since _college_.” 

“I believe it,” said Sherlock mildly, and put the laptop on the nightstand so that he could move to start tugging John’s shoes off. 

“Mmm,” said John. “Are you undressing me for sex?”

“No. You need to sleep this off.”

John curled a bit so that he could blink blearily at Sherlock. “Are you sad?”

“Sad? You just won a gold medal and you’re sprawled in my bed. I am absolutely not sad.” Sherlock leaned over and gave John a quick kiss. His lips were dry and chapped and tasted vaguely like terrible beer. American celebrations, Sherlock thought. 

John caught his hand clumsily in Sherlock’s shirt to keep him from moving away. “But are you sad we’re not having sex right now?” 

“Devastated. I’m sad every moment we are not engaged in active intercourse.”

John looked at him hard for a moment, then said thickly, “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“You’re the most adorable human being to ever exist,” said Sherlock, and moved back so that he could finish taking off John’s shoes. “We’ll have sex in the morning. It’ll still be gold medal sex, I promise.”

“Mmm,” said John. 

Sherlock glanced up at him. His eyes were already closed, his cheek already settled heavily against the pillow. Sherlock pulled the duvet up over him and then got back into bed. He wasn’t the least bit tired, so he pulled his laptop back onto his lap. 

He thought John would start snoring any minute but instead John said, “I won a gold medal.” 

Sherlock looked down at him and smiled. John’s eyes were open now, blinking in an unfocused way at nothing. “Yes. You did. And it’ll still be there when you wake up. Sleep now.” 

John’s eyes did close. “So many people have gold medals,” he mumbled blurrily. 

“Not that many.” 

“But I’m the only one who also has you,” continued John, and rolled so that he could swing a leg over Sherlock. “Fucking _jackpot_ ,” he murmured into his pillow. 

And then he started snoring. 

***

“You don’t have to come,” Sherlock told John, looking at him in concern. 

“The headache’s gone, I promise,” John informed him, as he finished combing his hair into all of its hateful obedience. “And I wouldn’t miss this last skate of yours for the world.”

“Exhibitions are stupid,” Sherlock sulked. 

“I know. I can’t wait.”

Sherlock shook his head, and he and John walked to the skating rink with Irene, and it wasn’t even unpleasant. Irene was talking about retiring. 

“I want to do something with people. I’ve always been good with people,” she said. 

“Coaching? Really?” John couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. 

“I didn’t say that, did I?” Irene gave him a smile like a cat lapping up cream. 

John blushed a bit and Sherlock thought he loved when John blushed, especially when John blushed whilst he was naked and Sherlock could lick the color down the length of his body. 

They parted at the door, John to go and watch and Sherlock and Irene to go get ready for the silliness of the exhibition. 

“What are you skating to?” Irene asked him. 

“A surprise,” Sherlock said shortly, because John had been trying to wheedle him out of it all day. 

“I didn’t know you had an exhibition routine prepared.”

“I didn’t.”

“So you’re just skating one of your regular routines?”

“No,” answered Sherlock briefly, and then parted ways to go into the men’s changing room. 

Where there was Moriarty. And the good news was that Sherlock saw him and barely registered a frisson of… _anything_. Because Sherlock had a gold medal, and Sherlock had John, and nothing about Moriarty _mattered_ anymore. 

Moriarty gave him a shadow of a smirk, as if he was trying, but Sherlock just ignored him, and that was _amazing_. He had spent so long being haunted by the idea of Moriarty and now suddenly everything had sharply crystallized into _more important things_. 

Just when Sherlock was about to leave the changing room, Moriarty said, “So this is it for you? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? Just…stay?”

Sherlock looked at Moriarty and thought of when he had thought that he had to stay in skating because he would die of boredom without it, and how nice it was to not think that anymore. 

“Anything but,” he replied.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it, you guys! The end!
> 
> I don't really understand exactly how this fic happened, as I wasn't writing a skating AU right up until the moment when I found myself writing a skating AU, and then it turned out to be a 50,000-word skating AU, and my life, you guys. This is, I guess, why you should never lose hope in my writing something, because I feel like azriona had been wheedling me for, like, a year about a skating AU, and I kept being like, "No, no, no," and then this all happened, so just ignore me, I know not what words might come out of my fingers next. 
> 
> Anyway, this fic was kind of a delight to write, considering that it came after some heavy writing in "Adventures of a Single Girl" and those lost few chapters of N&N. I really wanted to write a fic where they connected immediately and just stayed connected, with very little angst. So, honestly, I'm not sure there's much plot but they banter and snog a lot and it was just fun for me, and I hope it was just as fun for all of you. 
> 
> I haven't quite decided what's coming next, but I do know that I'm taking a bit of a break. As you may have discerned from my lack of comment response recently, I've fallen behind this summer. I'm going away on vacation and various other things for the next couple of weeks, and the timing seemed right to give myself--and my long-suffering beta--a bit of a mental break, during which I hope to finish one of the three (THREE) WIPs I currently have IP. 
> 
> Thanks, as ever, to arctacuda for the brilliant beta, to azriona for the idea in the first place, and to all of you for reading along and being so encouraging, always. You're all the best and I love you.

Chapter Sixteen

John sat with Sherlock’s parents at the exhibition. They teased him gently about not wearing his gold medal, and he said that he’d slept with it under his pillow (which wasn’t true, he’d slept with it on, but he liked the pillow story better). They laughed and looked at him fondly, and John was already having a second consecutive best day of his life, and that was before Sherlock skated out onto the ice in _jeans_ and a _white T-shirt_. Really, it should have been illegal for skaters to skate in that. He looked so impossibly good enough to eat that John’s mouth watered and went dry simultaneously. 

And then Sherlock started skating. To _David Bowie_. “Golden Years.”

“Oh my God,” breathed John. 

“I didn’t know Sherlock liked Bowie,” said someone behind John. 

John turned. Mycroft. Who he hadn’t seen in a few days, he realized. “You know Bowie?” John was surprised; he couldn’t help it. 

Mycroft gave him a disdainful look. 

The routine was a tour de force. Sherlock flew over the ice, his footwork fancy and fleet, his jumps dynamic, his spins quick and fierce. The crowd went wild with it, and Sherlock even bowed extravagantly at the end, as if some of David Bowie’s showmanship had rubbed off on him. 

“Unbelievable,” John breathed when it was done, and then pushed his way out of the crowd, texting Sherlock as he went. 

_That was incredible._

_You’re a complete rock star._

_You should rethink retiring._

Sherlock finally replied. _I’ll skate it for you whenever you like. –SH_

John grinned and texted back. _Is this the equivalent of a sext for you?_

He was so caught up in the texts that he ran straight into Moriarty coming out of the rink. 

Not that Moriarty had made any attempt to avoid him in any way. 

“If it isn’t John Watson,” he remarked, his lips tipping up into a smile. Not exactly a nice smile. 

“Oh,” said John, and smiled back, not exactly a nice smile. “If it isn’t the silver-medal winner.”

Moriarty’s icy expression didn’t flicker, stayed still and steady on John’s. “You think it’ll last? You think he won’t grow bored with you the way he’s grown bored with everything eventually?” 

John knew the voice that those little nibbling doubts would take in his brain for the rest of his life would be Moriarty’s voice. And he also knew that, just like now, he wasn’t going to let Moriarty have that power over him. He wasn’t going to listen. 

“You were wrong about Sherlock. You’ve been wrong about him all along. What makes you think I would ever believe you’d start to be right about him now?” 

Moriarty lifted his eyebrows, looking faintly amused. “Oh, really? Is that what you think?”

“I know it. You thought his heart would be his downfall, you thought you’d exploit it as a weakness. In the end, his heart was the difference between the two of you, it’s what made him the best. It’s the reason you will never come close to him. Ever. Hope we run into each other at the closing ceremony tomorrow,” said John with a tight smile, and moved away from Moriarty, and toward the rest of his life. 

***

“So you always had a Bowie routine in your pocket?” John asked in the darkness. He’d meant to ask these clarifying questions earlier, but instead he and Sherlock hadn’t done much talking at all once they’d finally found each other in the chaos of the figure skating exhibition. 

“Does that seem likely to you, John?” asked Sherlock lazily, his eyes closed. 

"No," John admitted slowly, propping himself up and looking down at him quizzically. "But then...I mean, you just skated a Bowie routine.” 

“Well done, John. Really well done. Really.” Sherlock’s voice dripped with fond mockery. 

John shook his head and picked up his pillow and batted it gently over Sherlock’s face, which made Sherlock laugh. “You just skated a Bowie routine. _How_?” 

“Years of training, John. I’ll try to teach you, if you like.” 

John threw a leg over Sherlock so he could straddle him. “I’m trying to get you to explain to me when you put together a Bowie routine.” 

Sherlock finally opened his eyes and looked up at him. “You asked me to, didn’t you?”

“That was only a couple of days ago,” John pointed out, amazed. 

Sherlock shrugged. 

“You put together that routine in a couple of days?”

“Last night, actually. Whilst you were out celebrating your victory.”

“You went to the rink last night?”

“No, I choreographed it from here.”

John blinked at him. “And that was the first time you’d actually _skated_ it?”

“I’d skated it in my head, John. It wasn’t especially challenging, and I knew how to do all of the elements.”

John just shook his head. “Christ, do you even know how good you are at this? You shouldn’t retire. You should do this forever.” 

“I think I’ve done it quite long enough. I’m looking forward to not having to do it any longer. Minnesota has some interesting unsolved murders. I can’t wait to get started.”

“Minnesota?” echoed John, quirking his head to the side. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock, after a moment. “I just thought…”

“I thought you’d want to live in London.” 

“But I’m retired and you’re not, and for your career—”

“We can split our time. It’d keep you from getting bored.”

“Do you like London?”

“I’ve actually never been,” John admitted. 

“I don’t want you to have to live somewhere you end up disliking.”

“Have you ever been to Minnesota?” countered John. 

“That’s different,” said Sherlock. 

“It isn’t at all different. I’m going to love London. You know why?” John leaned down to kiss him. 

Sherlock made an inquisitive sound against John’s lips. 

“Because you’ll be there.” 

***

Sherlock went to the closing ceremony because John wanted to. It was silly, because they were required to spend most of their time separated, to march in with their countries. Irene was busy making a conquest out of one of the British biathletes, and so Sherlock was left mainly to himself, and he huddled himself into his ugly, stupid Team Great Britain coat and glowered at everyone. 

Then his mobile vibrated with a text, and it was John saying, _This is amazing!_ , and Sherlock smiled and remembered why he was doing this. 

He walked out with Great Britain, and although he drew the line at waving to the crowd, he did allow a tight smile. And then, rather than sit with people he disliked for the rest of the ceremony, he went in search of the United States contingent, bracing himself to hunt through the massive amount of them, and for the possibility of running into Moriarty. 

He didn’t run into Moriarty, but when he managed to locate the U.S. hockey team, one of them who recognized him said, “Oh, are you looking for Watson? He went looking for you.” 

Damn, thought Sherlock, and pulled out his mobile to text quickly: _Wherever you are, stay right there and tell me. I’ll come to you. –SH_

“Listen,” the hockey player went on whilst Sherlock texted, and Sherlock listened with half an ear. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you anyway.”

Sherlock experienced instinctive dread—was this going to be a _hockey-players-aren’t-gay_ speech—and refused to look up. “Oh?” he asked lightly, without interest. 

“Yeah. About John…”

“About him?” echoed Sherlock drily, and braced himself to look up. 

But the man didn’t look accusatory. He didn’t even look uncomfortable, really. He looked…grave and earnest and determined, albeit a bit uncertain. Sherlock shifted more of his attention to him, curious now. 

“He’s a nice guy,” the man said firmly. “A good guy. And he deserves really great things. So, you know, if you break his heart, he’s got a whole hockey team behind him who can take you in a fight, you know. And there’s more besides us, too.”

Sherlock gazed at him for a moment and was almost relieved. As annoying as his parents and brother were, he knew that they would have given such a speech to anyone they felt unworthy of him. In fact, Sherlock thought ruefully, remembering misadventures of his past, he knew that they _had_. He was relieved to know that John had people in his life who cared enough about him to give such a speech to him, because John _deserved_ a _million_ of such people. 

“I won’t break his heart,” was all that Sherlock said. 

***

The Olympics were over. The flame had been extinguished. Everything had been packed up. And John stood outside and looked up at the skating house one last time, feeling nostalgic. He had had fun at these Olympics. He had _won a gold medal_ at these Olympics. And he would never go to the Olympics again, and they had passed by so quickly, in a flash, over before he knew it. 

And then Sherlock came out the front door in his fancy wool coat, and he smiled at John, and John smiled back. Never mind, John thought. What had really happened at these Olympics was he’d fallen in love, and been fallen in love with in return, and that was never going to end. In that respect, these Olympics would never end. John was going to keep winning a gold medal on a daily basis, every morning when he woke up to that man in his bed, every moment that Sherlock smiled at him or laughed with him or ducked close for a kiss or a nuzzle, every night when they fell asleep cuddled together. 

When John had arrived at the Olympics, he had been unable to see far enough in the future to even know if he would be able to compete, and now he could see the rest of his life, and it was _dazzling_. 

Sherlock took his hand and said something about how they never had tried out the drainpipes, which would have been a euphemism out of any other mouth, John thought. 

He suddenly blurted out, “Are you ready for this?”

Sherlock looked at him quizzically as they walked. “For what?”

John made a very vague motion with his hand, uncertain how he could articulate what he meant. 

Sherlock stopped walking, and John stopped to match him, turned to face him. Sherlock's gaze was solemn and intent. He said, “I used to think, when I was with you, the feeling was just exactly like being in the middle of a quad, and I didn’t know yet whether or not I was going to land it.”

John looked up at him. “And now?”

“There’s always a moment in a jump when you know. You just know. You are beautifully aligned and the rotation is tight and it doesn’t matter that you’ve lost the ice underneath you and you’re flying through the air, you just know—you _know_ —that it will be there for you when you want it back, that it will grab you, catch you, propel you into the next motion. There is a moment when you know. And I know about the quad now. I’m going to land it _perfectly_.” 

After a moment John smiled. “And I expect you to teach me how to do that, too.” 

“Whilst holding a hockey stick?”

“Possibly,” laughed John. 

And when he kissed Sherlock, he knew exactly what Sherlock meant, because he felt as if he could see the net right in front of him, and he knew it would be a goal. 

 

THE END.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for Working on the Edges](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2225376) by [Fabulae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabulae/pseuds/Fabulae)
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